Like a Shadow, forever
by Sijglind
Summary: Six years after the war, Harry runs into Narcissa Malfoy in St. Mungo's of all places, and finds out that Draco Malfoy is a patient in the Janus Thickey Ward. Harry, of course, decides to help him. After all, what else are heroes for? [HPDM Slash, Warnings inside]
1. Chapter 1

**AN:** All right, guys, this is my first multi-chaptered Drarry fic. I haven't finished it yet, but most of it is already written (if my imagination doesn't run off with me. Again.) This is an EWE fic and includes spoilers for all of the books, especially DH. There's only one minor change concerning Draco, but nothing so big it would change the outcome of the battle had it happened that way. You will find out what I'm talking about in the first chapter, so just go ahead.  
Anyway, I will update this piece every Monday evening (as in _evening in Germany_). I have no idea how long this will turn out to be, but well, we'll just have to find out.  
Be warned, I still don't have a beta and parts of this fic were written under the influence of too much coffee and not nearly enough sleep, and even though I read over the chapters before I post them, I don't always manage to find all of the mistakes. Feel free to point them out when you find some.  
Please don't hesitate to tell me what you think of this little story; comments are always appreciated! Ta.

**Warnings:** Descriptions of Torture (Cruciatus), Mental Health Issues

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**Like a Shadow, forever**

* * *

"Your nightmares follow you like a shadow, forever. "  
― Aleksandar Hemon, _The Lazarus Project _

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**Prologue**

"Do it."

The voice is a hiss, the whisper of a snake, and it sounds as it does in his nightmares—blood-chilling and terrible, horrifying, more adjectives of the sort. He has thought about it, in the fragile safety of his bed, but he hasn't found a word yet that's enough to describe the mind-numbing terror and dread that takes him over whenever he has to listen to the voice, has to obey the order like expected of him. He has been here before, in exactly the same position, several times already. Here in the drawing room of Malfoy Manor, a shaking and whimpering body at his feet, mother's precious Persian carpet soiled with blood, tears and excrement, its pattern destroyed beyond recognition and saving. All eyes are turned on him, he can feel them burning on his skin, boring into his back, every single person in the room waiting for him to move, to raise mother's wand and point it at the Muggle-born in front of him. They are lusting for the word, the _Unforgivable_ falling from his lips in a broken whisper. They want to see the body at his feet squirming and twisting and convulsing with the lightning running along its nerves, the thousands and thousands of invisible knives, prodding and piercing and stabbing, inflicting pain that knows no bounds.

He is disgusted, suddenly, nauseated by these people around him, by the hunger in their eyes.

The bundle squirms. The young girl, merely twelve years old, has given up begging half an hour before already. Or maybe she just can't any longer, Bellatrix' treatment of her rendering the girl speechless. His insane aunt had cackled with glee the whole time, every stroke with the knife carving another red, angry line into cloth and skin on the small, broken body until the mouth stopped forming pleas and only knew how to wordlessly scream. She knows her way around pain and torture, after all she's been the one to inflict so much on the Longbottoms they can't remember their own names, let alone the face of their own son.

He hadn't been able to look away from the cruel scene, still staring when the Dark Lord called Bellatrix back to his side and beckoned him to step forwards into the circle of followers. Mother had closed her eyes when she'd heard his name spoken by the voice, her fingers brushing over the back of his hand in a gesture of reassurance as he slipped past her. _Everything will be all right_, it meant to say, _just do what he says and nothing will happen to you._ He's stopped believing the lie a long time ago.

This is his punishment for letting Potter go, for refusing to identify him. The Chosen One slipped through their fingers because _he_ let him, because he looked into the green eyes of his school rival and shook his head, saying he wasn't sure even though he was. After all, he'd been glaring at those same eyes for six years whenever possible, daggers in his own and a taunt on his lips. There was no way he wouldn't recognize them. Yet, he'd lied, because in those long seconds he'd stared into the deep green pools with the golden sprinkles around the pupil before him, had seen the seemingly unbreakable determination in them, he'd let himself believe. It was a mistake, most likely, one he'll have to pay for dearly and soon enough, but faced with Potter's strong spirit, he could bring himself to trust the other to end all this, to finally slay the Dark Lord once and for all, and bring a world that doesn't fear to speak the name, a world where he doesn't cry silently in the darkness of his room because he's scared for his mother, his family, a world where there is no dark mark on his arm that shoots spikes of pain through him whenever he takes a breath.

He doesn't have to look at his mother to know that she's scared. She always is, these days of balancing on the knife's edge, a hair's breadth away from tripping. It's weighting down on her, the lines on her face carving deeper with every day, her hair dull and the make-up smudged beneath her eyes, elegant clothes hanging limply from her haggard frame. She's more ghost than human, a shadow of her former self she tiptoes through her own house while the brutish Death Eaters defile her possessions and chip grandmother's china, all because of her husband. The man's a failure, and he can't bring himself to call him father any longer, even in his own head. Lucius Malfoy was the worst thing that could possibly have happened to Narcissa Black, even if he'd never seen the light of day with out the man. He hates him with every fibre of his being, even more than the Dark Lord lounging on his chair in front of him, long, pale, skeletal fingers rolling the wand in his hand as if in boredom while he waits for the young Malfoy heir to make his move. It seems he already knows what the boy in front of him will do, what he'll say, and the Dark Lord's eyes are amused, a smirk playing around his colourless lips.

"I will not repeat myself," he says with his sickeningly sweet and soft voice, stroking the tip of his finger over the serpent's large head as it curls around the armrest of his seat, long, forked tongue flicking out to taste the blood in the air. It's hungry, and if it's lucky, there will be two meals waiting for it at the end of the day.

Grey eyes stare into red ones, and it's peculiar how the blonde boy from Slytherin seems to find his inner Gryffindor now of all times. Who would've known. The thought almost makes him laugh. Almost.

The wand in his hand is still pointed at the ground, and he's sure even if he wanted to raise it, he wouldn't be able to. It's too heavy with the memories of screams and pleas and green eyes so full of determination and strength.

Draco Malfoy shakes his head and doesn't even flinch when the Dark Lord's wand is raised to point at him and his mother screams.

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**One**

By now, Harry is used to the procedure he has to go through to be released from St. Mungo's and he lets the Healer run through the tests while he skims idly through the day's copy of the Prophet. The news of his injury only made it on page eight this time, the report squeezed between the discovery of a new kind of mandrake and the rumours about the new Holyhead Harpies' Captain's love life, and he has to smile when he notices how short and boring the article on him is, only describing the form of the injury (a clumsily cast vomiting curse that usually makes the victim puke their guts out but with Harry only resulted in him saying hello to his breakfast again) and that it's his seventh of the year. Six years after the war, The Boy Who Lived doesn't seem as important any more, at least not in terms of the not life-threatening injuries he gets from working as an Auror, and it's been over a year since he's made the front page of the Prophet.

Irritatingly enough, that particular item had been about his love life, and he still remembers seeing himself and Ginny waving from the cover of the newspapers beneath the headline _The Girl Who Broke The Hero's Heart: The tragic Story of Harry Potter's breakup with Ginny Weasley._ Of course, that Skeeter woman and her Quick-Quotes Quill had been responsible, describing Ginny as a heartless woman who left the world's youngest hero for the sake of playing Quidditch—for an Australian team no less—and left Harry behind as a broken and empty shell in need of love (according to a close friend of Harry's who wants to remain anonymous). The letters had started arriving on the very same day, and Ginny's owl had come a week thereafter, telling of the pile of Howlers she got from angry women who believed Skeeter's bullshit like it was gospel. Ginny, wonderful woman she is, had been able to laugh it off and told him not to worry, they'd forget soon enough and her mother knew a way to get the scorch marks out of her kitchen counter from incinerating the angry letters, and as always, she'd been right. The Howlers had trickled to a small stream after a month and stopped coming after three. However, to Ron's delight and amusement and Harry's annoyance, Harry still got love letters and proposals every other day from adoring (and according to Ron _desperate_) fans of every age and gender. Ron hadn't been able to stop laughing and was hexed mute by Hermione the day Harry received a letter from a fifty-something year old wizard asking for his hand in marriage, a photograph attached—a story that's retold by his redheaded best friend whenever there is too much alcohol at play.

That event not considering, the interest in The Saviour of the Wizarding World who rid the them of Voldemort has abated over the last years, the dinner invitations an fan mail thankfully lessening with it. Even though Harry Potter is still a name everybody knows and he can't walk through Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade in peace, Harry is relieved, and for the first time since his eleventh birthday hopeful that one day, everybody will only see him as Harry Potter the Auror and not The Boy Who Lived.

"All right, Mr. Potter, all done," the Healer, a witch in her forties by the name of Eleanor Greenbelly, says and snaps him out of his musings. He offers her a pleasant smile and slips from the examination cot to put on his Auror robes and make a hurried exit without appearing impolite.

"Everything seems to be fine," Healer Greenbelly goes on and scribbles something into a file while Harry buttons the front of his dark robes. "But come back here whenever you feel unwell." She levels a stern glance at him over the top of her reading spectacles, reminding him uncannily of Professor McGonagall, and all he can do is nod. She's already returned to the pile of files on her desk when he leaves the examination room and pulls the door closed behind him. A quick Tempus charm tells him it's only eight AM and he still has most of the day to himself before tea at Hermione and Ron's, having the day off due to the curse incident and the Healers wanting him to stay over night to make sure he really wasn't about to rid himself of his internal organs through his mouth. Debating with himself if he should nevertheless stop by his office in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to look over the report Ron was supposed to write and hand in later this day, he walks down the white corridors of the hospital, nodding in passing to the Healers in their lime green robes and other patients.

He's just rounding a corner on his way to the stairs when he hears it—a voice, female and familiar, once strong and cold, now desperate and breaking on the last word, "what do you mean you can't help him any more?"

Harry stops so abruptly at the sound of that voice, the Healer that had been walking behind him, nose buried in a patient file, bumps into him, and he hurries to apologize half-heartedly while he looks up and down the corridors for the owner of the voice, memories of when he'd heard it the last time before the hearing at the Wizengamot crashing down on him. For a moment, he's back in the Forbidden Forest, sticks and pine cones pressing into his side, the smell of damp earth, decaying wood and Dark Magic heavy in the air around him, his blood rushing in his ears when delicate, trembling fingers pull back his eyelids to see his pupils constricting. Narcissa Malfoy had looked into his eyes, holding his gaze with the pale grey irises Malfoy had inherited from her, and he saw the spark of realisation inside them. He'd been sure it was over, then, she knew he was alive, and even though her forearm didn't bear the Dark Mark, she was a follower of Voldemort and would tell him Harry had survived his Killing Curse yet again.

But, to his utter confusion, she'd done as her son all those weeks before in the rooms of Malfoy Manor—her fingers squeezing his wrist as if in reassurance before letting go, she'd straightened, brushed the dirt from her knees and _lied_. "Dead," she'd said and walked away.

The next time he saw her, she was standing in front of the Wizengamot, listening to Minister Shacklebolt reading out her sentence. Three years of house arrest and destruction of her wand, a mild sentence, due to her role in saving Harry Potter's life during the war. She accepted it with the air of a woman of her upbringing; chin held high and back straight, at the first glance appearing strong and proud with her elegant robes and the blond hair in a neat bun, but Harry had seen the dark bruises through the make-up beneath her eyes, the way her face had thinned since the forest, cheeks hollowing, the dullness of her formerly silky hair and the fact that her robes didn't fit as perfectly as before. When she was guided out of the room by two bulky wizards in DMLE robes, she'd nodded to Harry, a small inclination of her head as thanks for his statement in her favour. She had been gone before Harry could reach her and ask why she'd betrayed her lord, and he never got the chance to do it again. Later, he read that Lucius had ended up in Azkaban and Narcissa sold the Manor to estranged relatives of her husband, vanishing from the face of the Earth as far as the Prophet was concerned.

And now she is here, at St. Mungo's, standing in front of the doors to the Janus Thickey Ward, caught in an argument with a stern looking Healer.

"Please, Mrs Malfoy," the Healer says in clipped tones, his face almost blank as he looks down at the clearly upset woman. "Let's not have this conversation here, you're upsetting the patients."

At that, Narcissa bristles, her back straightening when she takes a deep breath as if she's preparing to start yelling, but when she opens her mouth, her voice is low and angry, close to hissing. "I do not care about the other patients, Healer Welling, I only care about _my son_!"

"That, Mrs Malfoy, is quite clear," the Healer retorts, disapproval audible in his voice and visible on his square face. "But I stand by what I've said; we cannot help your son any more than we already did and you have to accept that Draco will most likely remain in his current state."

They continue arguing, but Harry can't hear anything else, the meaning of the Healer's words hitting him like a blow to the chest and drowning out their heated conversation. Draco Malfoy is at St. Mungo's as a patient, and apparently in the Janus Thickey Ward. Images of the Longbottoms and Lockhart come to his mind—the former attention-hungry liar and Hogwarts professor telling Ron and him that he doesn't know his own name, but _they_ look weirdly familiar, Alice Longbottom's innocent and childlike smile when Neville lead her back to her room, her eyes strangely vacant and showing no recognition when looking at her son.

Strangely enough, Harry's heart drops when he thinks about Malfoy sitting in one of the sterile and bleak, white rooms, Alice's smile on his lips when he looks at the elegant woman in front of him that should be familiar with her blonde hair and grey eyes but isn't. He hasn't thought about his old rival who turned Death Eater since he read about his parents in the papers and suddenly, he's ashamed. Malfoy had saved his life when he refused to identify him, and he didn't even do what he did for his mother at her hearing. He doesn't even know if there _was_ a hearing for Malfoy to begin with, doesn't know his sentence and if he had been forced to spend the past years in Azkaban like his father and Voldemort's other followers, and the article in the Prophet had only mentioned him in passing by naming him as another Malfoy Death Eater. He hadn't even asked Andromeda Tonks if she's heard anything about her nephew from her sister.

Before he realizes, Harry is walking down the corridor towards the grey double doors to the locked ward and the two people standing in front of it. When he's only ten steps away, Narcissa shakes her head and turns away from the Healer, expression stern, ignoring Welling's scowl with all the grandeur of her family line and says, "I _am_ paying you, so see to it that you heal my son!"

The Healer shakes his head as well and mumbles something about lost causes when he shoves the doors to the ward open with more force than necessary.

Narcissa is about to brush past Harry, but he stops her by stepping into her path. "Mrs Malfoy," he greets her and holds his hand out. She seems taken aback by his apparently sudden appearance, and blinks a few times, looking from his face to his hand and back again before he realizes who's standing in front of her and takes the hand to shake it.

"Mr. Potter," she says with surprise, and then her face turns into a carefully blank mask as if she didn't just have an argument with a Healer about her son. "I read about your injury in the paper today. I hope all is well?"

Harry is a bit taken aback by the question about his well being, but the smile and response come easily to his lips thanks to all the years he's spent under the watchful gaze of the public, "yes, everything's fine, thank you." Narcissa nods as if it hadn't been obvious from him standing here in his Auror robes and not the hospital pyjamas.

"I am glad to hear that," she says and takes a step to the side to walk past him. "My apologies, but I fear I will have to leave now, Mr. Potter. Good day." It's a dismissal if he's ever heard one, but Harry stops her again, this time with a hand on her shoulder and she regards him with a bemused expression when the words come tumbling out of his mouth without grace in his haste to find out why his former school rival has ended up in St. Mungo's and the Janus Thickey Ward of all places.

"Excuse me, Mrs Malfoy, it's clearly not my place to ask with Mal— I mean _Draco_ and me not being friends in school and all, and, er, I heard you mentioning him being here—I didn't mean to eavesdrop, of course, but I heard your voice, and I've wanted to ask you a question since your hearing and thought I should take the chance now in case I won't see you again and then you said he's here, and I wondered what happened?"

He barely resists the urge to hit his face against the nearest wall, repeatedly, when he finally finishes his awkward rambling and instead drags a hand through his hair in frustration. This was clearly the worst way of asking a concerned mother about her sick son, especially when said son happens to be Malfoy and you're Harry Potter. Harry looks away, cheeks hot with shame and suddenly regrets that he didn't just leave Malfoy be. It's not like Harry could be of any help, and even _if _he could, that it would be wanted. This was a bad idea.

Narcissa draws his attention back to her, eyes narrowed with suspicion, when she asks, "why do you ask, Mr. Potter?"

Harry blushes harder and thinks about what reason to give her that would convince her to tell him of her son's condition, but when he can't come up with anything, he settles for the truth, embarrassing as it might be. "Look, I didn't mean to pry, it's not like I have any right to know, given— well, our history, but your son saved my life when he refused to identify me at your manor during the war, and I think I owe my life to him as much as I do to you, and I would've testified at his hearing as well, but I don't know if there even was a hearing, and if so, I never heard of it. I just. Want to know if I can do something to help. Him. Or you, maybe."

Narcissa's eyebrows have edged closer to her hairline the longer he speaks, and when he finally stops, they have already vanished beneath the lock of hair elegantly draped over her forehead. When she doesn't speak for a long moment, Harry holds his breath, preparing himself to be refused any information, but at least she hasn't started yelling at him yet, so he allows himself to take that as a good sign.

Then, Narcissa purses her lips and a shadow falls over her eyes, the mask on her face cracking to reveal the woman beneath—a mother with a sick child, worry, exhaustion and desperation having carved deep lines into her face, draining her already pale face of even more colour and turning the skin beneath her eyes to a dark blue that speaks of too many nights without sleep. Harry nearly takes a step back, but then determination and anger takes Narcissa's face over and she frowns. "Thank you, Mr. Potter. Your concern is touching, but if Healer Welling is to be believed, my son can't be helped."

With that, she turns away again, this time managing to walk a few paces before Harry remembers that he wanted to ask her another question and runs to catch up with her.

"Excuse me, Mrs Malfoy," he says when he falls in step with her, hurrying down the corridor towards the stairs, and he is incredibly relieved when she doesn't roll her eyes at him in annoyance, although she looks a lot like she wants to so he adds, "there was something else I wanted to ask you, and it's about that night in the Forbidden Forest."

She doesn't say anything but nods to acknowledge the question and tell him to go ahead while they dodge a Healer dragging a patient along who seems to got hit by a spell that forces him to tap-dance until his feet are bloody if the state of his shoes is anything to go by. Harry is distracted by the sight of a perfectly tap-dancing seventy-year-old for a second before he returns his attention to Narcissa. "The thing is, I always wondered why you lied back then, and told Voldemort"—she flinches slightly at the name—"that I was dead when you clearly knew I wasn't."

They come to a stop at the doors to the stairwell, and Narcissa looks up at him, sadness back in her pale eyes that are so similar to her son's, but when she speaks her voice neither wavers nor breaks. "The Dark Lord believed you were the only one capable of killing him, and as it turns out, he was right." She looks away and worries her bottom lip in a way that seems neither appropriate for her status nor her upbringing—but it's such an incredibly _human _thing to do, Harry feels something in his chest twist painfully. Narcissa Malfoy always struck him as a woman of ice and calculation, nose high and appearance neat and perfect. It seems being a parent can bring out the worst and best in a person.

When she looks back at Harry, the concern is gone and there's only pure hatred in its place. "He took my son from me, Mr. Potter. I felt like punishment was in order."

She nods curtly as goodbye and pushes through the door before he can say anything else, and Harry stands there, speechless, for a long moment as her words sink in and the clicking of her heels fades.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: **Thank you all very much for the follows and favourites! For this chapter I want to remind you about the Mental Health Issues warning, since you'll find out what state Draco is in.

Thank you very much, **BellaBoo1991**for the review, I am glad to know that I managed to keep Harry and Narcissa both in character so far. Happy you're already hooked!

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**Two**

When Harry stumbles out of the fireplace, Ron and Hermione are already sitting on the couch, three cups and a plate with biscuits on the table in front of them. Hermione is the first to jump up and envelop her friend in a tight hug, brushing her lips against his cheek in a small kiss before she holds him at arm's length to inspect him while Ron and Harry exchange an amused glance.

"I'm fine, 'Mione," Harry reassures her when she looks close to taking her wand out to repeat the same tests Healer Greenbelly already ran him through this morning, and Ron steps up behind her to pull his girlfriend aside. "Seriously, 'Mione, give the man some space. They let him out so he's fine." He rolls his eyes in exaggerated exasperation, but the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth betrays the gesture.

"Fine," Hermione says and bites her lip as Ron and Harry thump each other on the back in their usual fashion. "I was just worried. That curse can do real harm when done right."

"Yeah, _when done right_," Ron repeats with a smirk. "Luckily, that idiot didn't know how, or else the headlines announcing Harry's death would've been seriously embarrassing. Can you imagine? 'Saviour of the Wizarding World pukes himself to Death', 'Sixteen year old Wanna-be Death Eater kills The Chosen One'." His snigger earns him an angry glare from Hermione, but Harry snorts and flings himself onto the sofa, groaning when he relaxes into the soft and worn cushions. "Written by Rita Skeeter," he adds to complete the image and wrinkles his nose. "Promise me one thing; if I ever get killed on the job don't let her write the story."

"All right, mate." Ron sinks down next to him, one hand patting Harry's knee companionably before it withdraws again to steal one of the biscuits under Hermione's disapproving scowl. The half empty state of the plate tells Harry this isn't the first time today. Ron only grins sheepish at his girlfriend until she throws her hands up in defeat and stalks off into the kitchen to return with the teapot, carefully balancing it in midair. The tea set was a present from her parents to her and Ron when they moved into their own flat, a heirloom from Hermione's late grandma, and supposedly a couple decades old, the thin china cups decorated with hand-painted and delicate flowers which have already faded slightly over the years. Hermione loves them. Ron, not so much, but that's mostly because he fears to drop a cup whenever she gets the set out of the cupboard, and Harry can understand his unwillingness to put up with an angry Hermione mourning the loss of a family heirloom.

Harry eyes the cups in front of him thoughtfully and decides that they would fit better into a posh manor, and not so much into his best friends' flat filled with numberless books, (framed) Quidditch posters and mismatched furniture. Yes, he could definitely see Narcissa Malfoy's delicate and pale fingers wrapped around the thin handle of the cup, lifting it to her mouth to take a sip of tea and set it down back onto its saucer with as much care as possible. Speaking of which.

"Guess who I saw today," he says without taking his eyes off the cup in front of him, watching dark tea filling the cup, steam curling from it.

"Who?" The word is muffled by the biscuits in Ron's mouth. Harry reaches for the cup and takes it with both hands, feeling the hotness of the tea radiating through the thin china.

"Narcissa Malfoy."

Ron stops chewing and raises his eyebrows questioningly before he swallows audibly and reaches for the next biscuit, dodging Hermione's hand before she can slap his. "Where?"

"St. Mungo's."

"Oh," Hermione says and leans back in her armchair, tea cup in hand. "Is she sick?"

Harry shakes his head and takes a biscuit from the plate and brakes it in half, crumbs landing on his denim and the cushion between his thighs. "Malfoy is in the Janus Thickey Ward."

Ron chokes on his biscuit and Hermione nearly drops her cup, hot tea sloshing over its rim and onto her fingers, and she stifles a curse, setting the cup down gingerly before she gets her wand out and cleans the mess. Meanwhile, Harry is pounding on Ron's back to get the biscuit unstuck.

"Merlin's knickers, warn a bloke, will you," Ron wheezes between coughs and clears his throat once more for good measure, and Harry apologizes with a soft smile before disposing of the biscuit halves he suddenly doesn't want to eat any longer. Wiping his hands on his jeans, he slumps back into the soft sofa, releasing a long sigh as Hermione asks with a perked eyebrow, "did she say why he's there?"

Harry shakes his head and grimaces. "Not really. She only said Voldemort 'took her son from her'." Put like that, it sounds like Malfoy is dead, Harry thinks and suppresses a shudder. All three of them remain silent, each caught in their own memories of the Slytherin prince strutting through Hogwarts' corridors like a peacock, an arrogant sneer on his face and a taunt always on his lips. Their relationship with Malfoy has always been, to put it lightly, strained, thanks to the blonde's willingness to voice his hate whenever he could, parroting his family's prejudices about blood purity like the mindless Death Eater his father trained him to be. Eventually, they had stood on the two opposite sides of a war, Malfoy with a Dark Mark marring his forearm and Harry with the lightning scar on his forehead that marked him as The Chosen One. However, Harry can't forget the image of a crying Malfoy in the girls' bathroom, tugging his hair in desperation and hopelessness, the paleness of his skin a shade that reminded more of sickness than his usual fair complexion. And then the fateful night on the Astronomy Tower, Malfoy disarming Dumbledore and threatening to kill him with his raised wand when his whole body screamed for help, cheeks stained with tear tracks reflecting the silver moonlight.

In the end, Draco Malfoy had been as much a tool in the war as Harry himself, caught up in the half-truths and machinations of two old men trying to defeat one another once and for all.

"He wasn't at the final battle," Hermione finally says softly with a faraway look on her face, and Ron nods, his eyes full of shadows.

"Yeah. Last time we saw him was at the manor when he refused to identify Harry."

"He was punished." Harry's voice sounds strange even to his own ears. Unbidden, images flash in his mind, visions of Malfoy standing over a body on the ground, the wand in his hand trembling, face haunted, eyes wide and glassy with tears of desperation, voice breaking on the curse. He hadn't had another vision of Voldemort punishing Malfoy after the day at the Manor, and whenever he had woken from a nightmare during the war, soaked in sweat and his blanket tangled around his legs, the blonde had been strangely absent from the crowd of Death Eaters surrounding Voldemort.

Which can only mean one thing, and Harry swallows against the suffocating lump in his throat, shaking his head to get rid of the image in his mind; Malfoy, sitting on a hospital bed in St. Mungo's, his smile serene as his unseeing silver eyes stare at nothing.

* * *

A week later finds Harry stepping out of one of the fireplaces in St. Mungo's visitor area on the fifth floor. Hesitating for a moment, he brushes invisible Floo powder and ash from his Auror robes while he looks around the waiting room through his fringe. Luckily, nobody has recognized him so far, and he hopes it will stay that way. After all, the Boy Who Lived visiting a former Death Eater and school nemesis would get the rumour mill started faster than if he would be parading along Diagon Alley in nothing but frilly knickers. He grimaces and gets rid of the mental image quickly, keeping his head down as he slips out of the room and weaves through the people walking down the corridor. Wouldn't do to find out a Legilimens is in the crowd and all too willing to take a peek into Harry Potter's head.

Only, said mental image wouldn't be the worst to find there, Harry admits begrudgingly to himself. He's spent far too much time thinking about Malfoy over the last week, his mind returning to the blonde Slytherin whenever he's had a break at work or was sitting at home with nothing more than reading to do, the words on the pages in front of him blurring together while he stared unblinkingly at them until he realizes after two hours of thinking about Malfoy that he's still on the page he began with. It's sixth year all over, at least according to Ron, who's caught him staring into the distance far too often by now and squeezed the truth out of him more quickly than Harry likes to admit. To his defence, Harry has to say that this time he doesn't suspect his former nemesis of any shady deeds, but is more ridden by guilt over not wondering what happened to Malfoy sooner. Ron had only told him to talk to him when he comes back from visiting the Slytherin in hospital. When Harry had said he wouldn't visit Malfoy, why should he do such a thing, his best friend shook his head as if Harry was beyond help and said, "sure you won't," before walking out of the office to get something from the small bakery in the Ministry atrium.

And now, Harry is here, walking down the stairs to the fourth floor of St. Mungo's to get to the Janus Thickey Ward before he can decide against it, keeping his head low and his steps fast. It's almost frightening how good Ron knows him.

His steps only falter when he approaches the big double doors with the wired glass windows and the sign reading _Janus Thickey Ward_ above them, threatening like the Sword of Damocles. For a moment, he debates to turn on his heels and go home, forget Malfoy and his bad conscience with the help of a bit of Firewhiskey and some mind-numbing telly, but then the doors in front of him open, and the Healer stepping out sends him an odd look, and Harry ducks through the swinging doors before he can think better of it.

The corridor stretches in front of him, empty but for himself. Muffled conversation drifts through one of the open doors at the sides, the soothing voice of a Healer talking insistently to a reluctant patient claiming they are the reincarnation of Merlin himself, and Harry feels at a loss. This was a bad idea. Narcissa had said herself that the Healers believe her son is beyond help, and what good would he be able to do anyway. He is no trained Healer but an Auror, and even if Malfoy is in any form to decide who he'd let help him, Harry will most definitely _not_ be on his list.

However, before Harry can follow through with his renewed plan of Going Home and Forgetting Malfoy, there's a voice next to him, asking, "can I help you?"

Harry whips his head so fast around he's sure he just pulled some muscles, and looks at the middle-aged Healer standing next to him, a glint of recognition in the wizard's eyes as they skim over Harry's face and linger for a moment on the lightning scar on his forehead.

"Er, yes," Harry says and tugs on the sleeves of his robes self-consciously, inwardly cursing himself and his stupidity. "I would like to speak to Healer Welling?"

The Healer seems surprise at his request, but nods quickly and walks off, beckoning Harry to follow him down the corridor to a closed door at its end, a brass plate revealing it as Welling's office. "He's in," the Healer says and vanishes with a last glance at Harry, his brows furrowed as if he's wondering what The Saviour of the Wizarding World is doing here—something even Harry can't answer.

Harry steels himself with a deep breath and knocks, his heart going a mile a minute as he waits for the voice from inside inviting him in. When he pushes the door open, Welling is sitting behind his desk, blinking at his visitor with raised eyebrows, an open folder in front of him.

"Healer Welling?" Harry asks for the lack of anything better to say, and the Healer nods, one brow still arched above his curious brown eyes. "How may I help you?" Taking the question as his cue, Harry steps into the room and closes the door behind him with a click that sounds far too final for his liking before turning back to the wizard at his desk and offering his hand.

"Harry Potter," he says as the Healer shakes his hand, and watches the familiar surprise bloom on Welling's hard features before it is replaced by a warm and welcoming smile. Gesturing to the chair on the other side of his desk, the Healer lets go of Harry's hand and sits down with the words, "well, to what do I owe the honour of this visit, Mr. Potter?"

Harry barely manages to refrain from cringing at the words and sits down as well, watching the Healer close the folder in front of him to put it onto a stack of other patient files resting next to his elbow. He hates the way people treat him as special, the way they let everything drop as soon as he appears to tend to his every need and greet him like an old friend. At least, he hasn't been called Saviour today.

"Er," Harry begins intelligently and swallows, hands wringing in his lap. Welling only offers him an encouraging smile and leans back in his chair, fingers steepled and elbows propped up on the armrests. Throwing caution and doubts out of the window, Harry decides on a head-on approach, since that's what he does best, and goes on, "I heard that Draco Malfoy is a patient of yours and wondered if you might tell me why exactly he's here?"

Welling seems taken aback for a moment, his mouth forming a silent and surprised _oh_. Then, a frown takes his face over, and the Healer leans in over the table, looking at Harry intently as he seems to try reading his intentions on his face, and Harry adopts the blank and unaffected mask he usually offers to the the case suspects he's interrogating, hiding his nervousness behind a façade of calm indifference. When Welling finally leans back again, his face is stern and grim. "I am sorry, Mr. Potter, but I am in no position to give out information about my patients. Not even to you." The last word is accompanied by a meaningfully raised eyebrow, and Harry grinds his teeth.

"If you wish to find out more about the origin of Mr. Malfoy's current state, you will have to ask his mother, as she is the only remaining relative and Draco is in no condition to make decisions on his own."

That, of course, is out of the question, since Harry already tried and Narcissa didn't seem to be willing to give even a detail about her son's current condition away. His disappointment must show on Harry's face, because the Healer's frown softens and he rubs a hand over his clean shaven skin as if he's considering something. "Of course, there's always the option of seeing Draco," he says and smiles encouragingly. "I cannot tell you much about the treatment we have the patient under, however, we highly encourage visits from friends and family. And," he stops Harry's protest with a raised hand, "even visits from, let's say, not-friends, as long as the face is a familiar one."

Welling's smile gains on amusement and Harry tries hard not to roll his eyes. Since Skeeter published her book _Harry Potter: The Boy Who Lived Twice_, and included a chapter completely dedicated to Malfoy's and his 'Relationship of Hate', it was a well-known fact to the Wizarding population of the Kingdom that both boys couldn't stand to be in the same room during their schooldays. Thankfully, Harry's borderline-stalkerish behaviour during sixth year had never found its way into said book or, at least according to Hermione, people would have gotten the wrong idea what with all the hints about jealousy and obsession on Malfoy's part Skeeter had dropped in the chapter.

Brushing the thought aside, Harry shakes his head softly, but says, "all right. Can I see him now?"

To be honest with himself, Harry has been more than curious to find out in what condition Malfoy is exactly so that he has to stay in St. Mungo's locked ward, even though the mental image of the blonde with Alice Longbottom's childlike smile on his face still makes him shudder involuntary. It just doesn't fit. In all those years Harry has known Malfoy, his aristocratic features have always been pulled into a sneer or scowl.

Apart from sixth year and their brief encounter in the manor during the war, but Harry is _not thinking about it_.

"Certainly," Welling says and waves his wand with a flick of his wrist. "My apprentice will accompany you to his room."

On cue, there is a quiet knock and the door is opened without waiting for an answer to give way to a young girl in lime green robes. There is an A stitched in golden threats into the cloth above her heart, identifying her as an Apprentice Healer, and apparently the one Welling just talked about.

"Leatrice," he says and rises from his chair, Harry following. "Mr. Potter here would like to visit Draco. Please bring him to his room and fill him in on everything he needs to know."

The Apprentice—Leatrice—glances at Harry, pale green eyes roaming over his face in search for the scar on the forehead before returning to the Healer and she nods curtly, taking a step back to make room for the two men to step out of the office. Harry offers his hand and Welling takes it to bid goodbye.

"Thank you, Healer Welling. Good Afternoon."

"Good Afternoon to you too, Mr. Potter," the Healer says but doesn't let go of Harry's hand yet. Instead, he leans in a bit closer, his voice much quieter when he speaks again. "Just a warning; The man you will see in that room is neither the boy you went to school with, nor the Death Eater you fought during the war. You might do well to remember this, Mr. Potter. Have a good day."

With that, Welling lets go of Harry's hand, and after a few words to his apprentice, stalks off with billowing robes that could rival Snape's. Confused thanks to the man's cryptic words, Harry looks after him until Leatrice subtly clears her throat and points down the corridor in the opposite direction, deeper into the ward. "It's that way."

Harry only nods and falls into step beside her, ignoring the glances she shoots him whenever she thinks he's not looking. He's used to it, really, and has learned to accept the extra attention without sighing any more, but given the situation and his already frayed nerves, he can't help but grind his teeth, hands curling into fists at his sides. Healer Welling's words still ring in his head, an unpleasant echo that makes every step he takes feel heavier and heavier with foreboding, and by the time they come to a halt in front of one of the many doors, he feels like he's heading towards his own execution, the headsman with his black cowl and scythe waiting just behind the unobtrusive door with the number 412.

Leatrice turns towards him, face blank and professional. "Most people are shocked when they see former acquaintances in here," she informs him with a wave of her hand, taking in the whole of the ward. "That goes for Draco's friends and family as well. And most likely, also for you." Taking her wand from her sleeve, she tips it against the round doorknob and it unlocks with a silent _snick_. However, she hesitates and turns back around before opening it, eyes narrowing to slits as she asks, "so, you're really _the _Harry Potter?"

Harry raises a brow over the question, and his voice is slightly chilly when he answers, "yes, I am. Would you like to have an autograph? Or a photo with me, perhaps?"

With satisfaction, he notices an embarrassed blush spreading on her cheeks upon his sarcastic words, but then she lifts her chin defiantly, and somehow manages to look down her nose at him despite being several inches smaller. "No, thank you, Mr. Potter. I merely felt the need to ask to protect my patient."

At that, Harry squares his shoulders and settles for an intimidating scowl that comes in handy during interrogations. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Leatrice, apparently enjoying that she managed to get a rise out of him, smirks and says with an air of casualness, "well, if Rita Skeeter can be believed, the relationship between you and my patient was never on good terms, what makes me wonder why you're here. I hope it's not to gloat."

The last words make him deflate and his shoulders slump, one hand coming up to drag through his hair in frustration. "Rita Skeeter doesn't know anything," he finally says, and the Apprentice Healer shoots him a long, scrutinising look before she crosses her arms over her chest.

"So _why _are you here?" she prods, and Harry wishes she'd just let it go, however, from the way she acts like a mother bear defending a cub, it doesn't seem likely, and Harry feels irritation stinging hot in his chest. He didn't fight and defeat Voldemort to be pestered by a girl that looks barely old enough to be out of Hogwarts yet.

"Look," he says and hopes his voice sounds calm and sympathetic. "Malfoy and I were never friends, that's true. And we might have fought on different sides during the war, but I owe him and his mother my life, so I want to do whatever I can to help him."

Leatrice cocks an unimpressed eyebrow at him and shakes her head. "How very Gryffindor of you," she says in a way that tells him she's most likely been in Slytherin herself, and reaches for the doorknob. "Just don't be crushed when you find out that you can't help," she warns him over her shoulder as she pushes the door open and walks inside without waiting for his response.

"Draco, you have a visitor," she announces, and Harry takes a hesitant step into the room.

It's as bleak as he's expected, the walls painted in taupe and lacking any decoration like pictures or posters. Sunlight streams in through the large windows at the far wall, but it's not enough to take the overwhelming greyness that seems to be a default for hospitals from the room, which is empty apart from an armchair for visitors and the bed.

And on the bed, wearing white hospital pyjamas, sits Draco Malfoy.

Harry's breath catches in his throat.

Malfoy is a shell, a dust-covered photograph in the attic that has faded so much it doesn't even hold a shadow of the person once depicting it. The only thing that connects Harry's former school rival with the empty puppet sitting propped against the headboard of the bed are the Malfoy features, but where the young Slytherin had taunted at every possibility, smirked and smiled smugly, an air of arrogance as persistent around him as flies on a pile of shit, the man that Harry now looks at is—nothing. Nothing more than blank stares and unseeing, dull eyes. The long silver-blonde locks are gone, shorn to an inch for the convenience of the staff, and without them, Malfoy looks even paler than before.

He hasn't even looked up or turned his head, just stares off into the distance, face blank as Leatrice talks to him in calm tones. There is no innocent, childish smile on his lips like Harry feared.

And somehow, that makes it even worse.

He doesn't know how long he's standing in the door, just staring at the empty person sitting on the bed, and when Leatrice guides him out of the room with a hand on his arm and a sympathetic expression on her face, he flees before the door falls shut behind them.

* * *

That night, Harry needs a long time to fall asleep. He twists and turns on his bed, the blanket tangled around his legs, and whenever he closes his eyes, he sees Malfoy in the white pyjamas that make him look like a ghost, sees his vacant face and his grey eyes that lack the former sharpness.


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: **Thank you all very much for the comments, favourites and follows! I am glad you find it intriguing so far. Enjoy the third chapter, which features Operation Malfoy, some of Skeeter's bullshit and The Boy Who's Quite The Catch.

* * *

**Three**

"It's like he's not there any longer," he tells Hermione and Ron on Saturday. They are sitting at the kitchen table in their flat, empty dinner plates in front of them, and Hermione got out the wine as soon as Harry started retelling his visit to Malfoy the day before. His best friends have been silent so far, letting him finish before they asks questions or comment on the situation, their faces attentive and a glint of sympathy in their eyes, and when he started describing Malfoy to them, Hermione had reached out over the table to take his hand in hers and squeeze in reassurance.

"It's like he's been kissed by a Dementor," Harry whispers finally and stares at the leftover pizza crust on his plate as if it can tell him the secrets to healing Draco Malfoy. Neither of the three speaks for a long moment, the last words hanging above them, heavy with their meaning.

Finally, Ron asks, "do you think he deserves it?"

Harry's head snaps up and he looks at his best friend, eyes narrowed as he tries to read his thoughts from his expression. But Ron's face is blank, eyes intent while he waits for his answer, and Harry slowly shakes his head. "Nobody does."

"Even though he was a royal prat in school?" Ron goes on in the same calm tone that holds no harshness or reproach. "Even though he called Hermione Mudblood whenever he could and went on and on about blood purity and his father?"

Harry thinks back to their school days, remembers Malfoy playing pranks and trying to get them in trouble whenever possible. The way he strutted through the corridors with his entourage in tow, bragging about his father. He remembers Malfoy's taunts about the Dementor incident in third grade, the way he spat the word Mudblood at Hermione with so much disgust, the badges he made during the Triwizard Tournament. And then he remembers the tears on his face and the utter despair when Harry found him in the girls' bathroom during sixth year, and shakes his head.

"Even though he accepted the Dark Mark and became a Death Eater? Even though he let other Death Eaters into the school during sixth year and tried killing Dumbledor?" There is still no scorn or hate in Ron's voice, just a detached calmness as if he isn't recounting all the bad things the blonde Slytherin has done, but merely counts off a list of ingredients for a recipe. Harry looks at his friend for a long moment. He's hated Malfoy, yes, and he was close to killing him during sixth year. He hadn't understood how the other boy could willingly accept the Dark Mark and the task of killing Dumbledore, how he could join Voldemort's ranks of insane followers and still look at himself in the mirror each morning.

But as it turned out, Malfoy couldn't kill. And accepting the Dark Mark had not been really a choice to him. He had seen him cry with frustration and helplessness not only once but twice, and later, Harry realized that Malfoy had only done all those things because he was protecting his family, because it was either torturing the muggle-born on the floor or be tortured himself.

That's why Harry shakes his head for a third time and repeats with determination, "no."

And to his bemusement, Ron drops the calm mask and smiles before leaning back in his chair with the words, "so, what are you going to do about it?"

* * *

Harry sees the book when he comes home on Sunday from the monthly dinner at the Burrow and flings himself on the couch in his living room. _The Book_ is namely Rita Skeeter's unauthorized biography about him, _Harry Potter: The Boy Who Lived Twice_, a weighty tome filled with half-truths and occasional lies between the facts she managed to wring out of 'close friends' who turned out to be other students barely knowing him. However, not everything she wrote about him is completely wrong or far-fetched, something Harry was pleased to notice when he skimmed through the different chapters.

Ginny had bought the book when it came out, more than two years ago, and together they had sat down on the couch and read through the chapter about their own relationship, laughing over the way Skeeter described their love as a soppy romance that was _meant to be_, and bloomed between them on first sight, the two of them blushing virgins unable to voice their feelings for each other throughout the years until they finally found one another in Harry's last year at Hogwarts before the war and Harry's destiny tore them apart for one whole year. But alas! The lovers found each other again after Voldemort's defeat, and from then on lived happily ever after. Harry wonders, amused, if Skeeter was angry when she found out the two of them broke up only a year later and never found their fairy tale ending. Judging from the article in the Prophet, she most certainly was.

Harry reaches out and carefully pulls the book from the pile sitting on the side table next to the couch, so as not to make the stack fall over. His own face looks back at him from the cover, determined and grim with an edge of exhaustion. The photograph was taken hours after the battle, his face still covered with grime and sticks in his hair from the Forbidden Forest, a scratch on his glasses. A disembodied arm is slung around his shoulder, and he doesn't remember whom it belongs to, only that he was led out of the Great Hall as the reporters arrived and seemingly thousands of light bulbs went off around them from the cameras. Even when someone pulled him away from the group of people shouting questions at him, the reporters hadn't given up until McGonagall threatened to sick Hogwarts' stone guardians on them if they wouldn't leave and give Harry and the others some peace to mourn their losses and finally get some sleep. After that, he doesn't remember much apart from being brought to a dorm and passing out even before his head hit the pillow.

Absently, he rubs a finger over a smudge on the cheek of his photo and then cracks the book open, looking over the index for the chapter he wants to read through and finds it on page hundred-seventy-four.

_Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter, A Relationship of Hate_ the chapter title reads in bold letters beneath a photo of a fifteen year old Malfoy. For a moment, Harry looks at the blonde teenager, follows his movements with his eyes. Malfoy is talking to someone to his right before he turns towards the camera, still smiling from whatever the person said in response. As soon as he notices the camera, the amused, _true_ smile turns into a smug smirk, his whole face morphing into the one of the arrogant prick Harry remembers Malfoy to be. After a few seconds of smirking at the camera, the loop begins anew, and Malfoy turns back to the person at his side, smiling.

Harry never saw that smile before. It's an honest smile, one of amusement, and it makes his whole face light up, small crinkles forming at the corners of his eyes, which look less like hard steel and more like molten silver. It's something Malfoy never showed Harry, what makes it almost private, as if Harry is imposing. However, Harry can't look away for a long moment, too intrigued by this unknown side of his school nemesis, whom he only ever knew as a spoiled brat. Then, he begins to read.

_It is a well-known fact that every hero, may they be real or fictional, needs a counterpart, a nemesis, an enemy. One could say that Harry Potter found such a counterpart in He Who Shall Not Be Named in the first year of his life during the tragic night in which our Saviour lost his parents and became The Boy Who Lived. However, if one looks at Harry's life in the same way I have over the past year, one will see that the Dark Lord was not the only antagonist this hero had to deal with during his Journey to fulfil the prophecy binding him to You Know Who._

_The story of Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter's relationship based on hate begins on the first day of their first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry on the train that was to bring the students to the school. Draco Malfoy, heir of the old pureblood family and only son to known Death Eater Lucius Malfoy and his wife Narcissa, offered his hand in friendship on that very day to The Boy Who Lived. Back then, many would have been delighted to receive such an offer since Malfoy Sr. held great power in the Ministry of Magic during the days of Cornelius Fudge as Minister, and the Malfoy name was nearly as famous and important as Harry Potter himself. _

_Yet, our hero declined, and Draco Malfoy, who was not used to being rebutted in any way, began his quest of tormenting our hero throughout their school years together._

Harry pauses to remember that first day at Hogwarts, Malfoy's sneer when he talked about the Weasley family and said he'd be a better choice as a friend to the famous Harry Potter. Skeeter mentions hurt pride and jealousy as Malfoy's reasons to provoke Harry at every turn, and Harry can almost believe it when he replays the scene after Harry didn't take the Slytherin's hand, the confusion and hurt he saw flickering over the pale face before it was replaced by a scowl, and he wonders what would have happened if he'd taken the offered hand. Would they be where they are now, Harry an Auror in the DMLE and Malfoy a patient in the Janus Thickey Ward? Or would Harry have been able to teach Malfoy how wrong his views on blood purity and the importance of lineage really were? Would he have accepted the Dark Mark or could Harry have found another alley in the fight against Voldemort? Another spy in the Death Eater ranks like Snape?

Quickly, Harry derails the train of thought before it can go anywhere. He has enough of a bad conscience as it is, and it's not like he can go back to that evening and find out. That's not how it works, and anyway, there couldn't have been any friendship between them with the way Malfoy parroted his father's beliefs without questioning them even once.

So he reads on and cringes when Skeeter describes him as the victim of the cruel junior Death Eater, enduring the torment like a saint and offering the proverbial other cheek after every proverbial slap. According to her, Draco was ruthless and vile, and already a Death Eater in his mother's womb, playing pranks endangering Harry's life even, and all in all, making his time at Hogwarts a living hell, only because he could not get over the declined friendship in their first year. The way how Harry talked back and did enough teasing of his own is completely left out.

Later, Skeeter goes on about Malfoy becoming a Death Eater, guiding others of them into the School during his sixth year with a satisfied smirk on his face to kill Dumbledore in cold blood. She doesn't describe how he looked during that year, doesn't mention his pale and haggard face, the dark bruises beneath his eyes, the way he cried in front of a mirror and on the Astronomy Tower, utterly helpless. How he nearly died on the floor of Myrtle's bathroom, his chest carved open and his blood tinting the overflowing water from the toilets and sinks pink while Myrtle screamed and Harry, the Saviour, the Hero, stood frozen with dread about what he'd done.

She doesn't say how the hero of her story nearly killed a desperate sixteen year old who was forced to be a Death Eater as punishment for his father's failure.

The Malfoy Skeeter invoke in her story is evil and insane like his aunt, cackling when he tortures his victims, smiling when he casts the Unforgivable Curses, full of bliss when he kneels in front of his Dark Lord. Her Malfoy is one that doesn't fit the smile of the photograph, and when Harry finishes the chapter an hour later, he wants to strangle the woman who wrote it.

* * *

"So?" Ron prompts on Tuesday as they sit together at lunch in the Ministry cafeteria. After more than thirteen years of friendship, Harry is used to the way Ron eats and doesn't even scrunch up his nose when he's faced with the chewed mess of food in Ron's mouth when he speaks again. "Any developments in Operation Malfoy?"

They haven't talked more about Malfoy since Saturday, the dinner at the Burrow too hectic with Mrs Weasley fussing over the three of them and her other children, and Monday too filled with case work to find time to focus on other things. But they closed the case this morning, arrested the poor excuse for a Potions master they were looking for, and are now about to move on to the next case that lands on their desk. After lunch, of course, and Harry knows that Ron chose the time to talk about Malfoy deliberately, so Harry can't make excuses about work to not have to talk about it.

Defeated, Harry sinks more into his chair and lets his shoulders slump, staring at the plate in front of him and pushing the potatoes on it around.

"I have no idea," he admits and puts the fork down to rub his eyes with one hand as if he's trying to chase away tiredness, but in truth, only wants to clear his mind. Ron waits patiently for him to go on, knowing that Harry will start speaking on his own if given the time.

"I'm no Healer, and even if I were, I'm sure I wouldn't have a clue what to do next. Or else the Healers at St. Mungo's would already have taken care of the whole thing." He thinks of the argument between Welling and Narcissa, how the Healer said she might have to get used to the idea that there is no hope for her son's condition to improve. And even though the Healer didn't seem too fond of his patient's mother, he was professional when Harry talked to him, so Harry trusts his judgement.

"I don't even know what happened to him in the first place," Harry sighs and grimaces. Not that he doesn't have an idea, after he's spent so much time in Voldemort's head, but speculations won't bring him far. Ron grunts from the other side of the table and purses his lips, considering, one finger tapping against his chin in an irregular rhythm. "So why don't you ask his mother what happened if the Healers won't tell you?" he asks after a moment and Harry shakes his head.

"She didn't want to tell me before, why should she change her mind now?" He's surprised by the tone of defeat his voice has adopted.

"Yeah, but she's a _Slytherin_, Harry," Ron says with an exasperated sigh and eye-roll as if that would explain Narcissa Malfoy's behaviour. "She can't understand that you would act out of the good of your heart. In her world, everybody acts with an ulterior motive. She possibly thought you'd want to gloat or give an interview in the Prophet about her son being in the locked ward at Mungo's."

Surprisingly, that makes a lot of sense. After all, she wouldn't be the first one to think he came to gloat, the Apprentice Healer had even admitted to thinking so on Friday. But if he hadn't been able to convince Naricssa before, how is he supposed to do it now? When he tells Ron so, his friend shrugs and scoops a chip from his plate to stuff it into his mouth before answering, providing Harry with the sight of a half eaten chip on his tongue. "Well, you can tell her you already know of Malfoy's condition, and you've been there on Friday. By now you would've plenty of time to go to the prophet, and that Apprentice that was with you in the room could tell her how you reacted. Might not be enough, but it's worth a try."

Harry considers that for a moment and then nods, already forming a plan in his mind on when to talk to Narcissa, and how to find her in the first place. He'll have to use a bit of his influence and name to get to the files about her, and even though he doesn't like that prospect, it's not like he has another choice. After all, he hasn't seen her in six years and only ran into her by chance, even though he is in St. Mungo's relatively often if the other Aurors' joking can be believed.

Harry is startled out of his musings by Ron's hand patting his shoulder. He looks up and Ron inclines his head towards the door. "Gotta get going, mate. Guess Denley already has another case for us, and even being the Saviour of the Wizarding World won't save you if you're slacking." He's already halfway to the door when Harry scrambles to his feet and catches up with him. They walk in silence to the lifts and don't talk when they push inside with a chattering group of witches wearing the robes of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, the departments red logo on their chests. He tunes their voices out, not overly fond of the gossip coursing through the Ministry since it seems to include him far too often, however, he can't help catching the name Skeeter a few times, and when he chances a glance, he sees the witch in front of him clutching a heavy book to her chest that looks all too familiar. Barely resisting the urge to groan, he rolls his eyes instead when he recognizes the green hard cover, knowing he'd have to look at his own seventeen year old face if she'd turn it around.

After reading through the chapter on Malfoy on Sunday evening, Harry had nearly cast Incendio on it but caught himself in the last moment and threw it through the room instead, satisfied when it ended up underneath a bookshelf.

"I don't understand why_ he _hasn't found anyone else yet," one of the witches says now, shooting Harry a glance she might find subtle but was so obvious that Harry, again, wants to roll his eyes. However, he stares straight ahead and acts as if he doesn't know whom they're talking about, nudging Ron in the ribs with his elbow when his friend grins at him gleefully. "I mean he must've had a thousand offers by now. And it's already been _over a year_," she says with emphasis on the last words as if The Chosen One being single for an amount of time like that is preposterous. Harry grits his teeth.

"Well, if the reports can be believed, his last girlfriend truly broke his heart," another witch says with sadness and sympathy in her squeaky voice. "It wouldn't surprise me to know he's still not over her. After all, the whole thing was so romantic!"

A witch with long chestnut hair snorts and flicks her long wavy hair back with an air of superiority, her nose wrinkled in disgust. She's maybe five years older than Harry and might have been considered pretty if she didn't seem so arrogant. "Well, if I would have been in her position, I would have never let him go. He's quite the catch, after all," she says with a snotty tone to her voice, and then purrs, "that he became quite handsome over the last years doesn't hurt either."

Harry shudders when he feels her meaningful gaze settle on him and ignores Ron's muffled snort of laughter, incredibly relieved when the lift finally announces with a ding that they have reached the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, and the group of witches stream out with a few lingering gazes. Fortunately, nobody else gets in and Ron and Harry have the lift to themselves for the remainder of the time until they arrive the DMLE. Ron bursts out laughing as soon as the lift pulls back, and Harry exclaims, "Merlin, will they never let that go?"

"No," Ron rasps out between breathless laughs, "you're to good a catch for that."

Harry glares at him and refrains from banging his head against the wall of the lift repeatedly.


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: **Thank you all very much for the feedback, favourites and follows. It makes my little heart very happy to see you like the story so far! I'm sorry for the sadness and the tears, but I promise it will get better eventually.

* * *

**Four**

It's surprisingly easy to get access to Narcissa Malfoy's files. Harry didn't even have to wave one of his many titles around, Head Auror Denley simply shrugged and told him to go ahead, not even looking up from the pile of case reports he was signing, so Harry left his office as fast as possible without being impolite and sprinted down the corridors towards the file room, nearly running into a confused looking wizard balancing two steaming cups of coffee in front of him.

The file room is as huge as the Hall of Prophecy in the Department of Mysteries. Magically expanded, the ceiling is high above Harry, rows of large shelves blocking the walls from view, and their footsteps are muffled when Harry is guided by a plump wizard to the file he needs.

"Ah, here we are," the wizard says breathlessly when they stop in front of a shelf that has neither a number, nor a letter to categorize it. "Malfoy, Narcissa."

The wizard stretches his podgy fingers out and wraps them around a dusty box with a number and _Malfoy, N. _written on it. Harry nearly coughs when a cloud of years-old dust raises from the lid and settles in his airways, but he merely clears his throat to get rid of the scratchy dryness when the wizard turns his small, dark eyes on him and pushes the box into Harry's hands. Pushing his large horn-rimmed glasses up his upturned nose, the wizard smiles nervously and gestures to the box. "Please returned when you're finished, Mr. Potter," he says and wipes his hands on his grey robes. "Returning it to my desk will suffice."

"Will do," Harry says and shifts the box so he can carry it under one arm while he follows the wizard out of the labyrinth of shelves and bids goodbye with a promise he'll return the file soon, before hurrying back to his office.

After the war, all pardoned Death Eaters and their acquaintances had to inform the Ministry about were they lived so that Aurors could come by their address at any time for 'random check-ups' to make sure they wouldn't get involved with the Dark Arts again. After three years, those random check-ups got less, and Harry himself was only ordered to do two. By now, the Aurors only come by the homes of the pardoned witches and wizards once a year, and then there are only new Aurors send out to do the task. Still, if anyone should 'forget' to mention a change in address, the Ministry wouldn't react kindly, so if Harry wants to know where Narcissa Malfoy lives now, he'll find his answer in the file inside the box now resting on his desk.

For a moment, Harry stares at it as if it would give away the information simply by that, and he doesn't even notice Ron coming in until his friend is standing in front of him and waving a large hand in his line of sight. Then he flinches and looks up to be met by Ron's amused face.

"That her file?" Ron asks and pokes the carton lid with his index finger like a child would poke a dead animal with a stick. Harry simply nods and brushes the dust from the box off his robes so he has something to do with his hands and is excused from not opening the box yet. Ron perks an eyebrow at him as if he knows exactly what's going on. "Why haven't you opened it yet?"

Harry sighs and sinks into his chair, his head tilted back. "Because I still don't know if she wants my help." Ron grunts and sits down on the chair on the other side of Harry's desk, kicking his feet up on the edge of the desk since he can't do that at home with Hermione around. Harry lets him.

"Okay, I understand that, but you won't find out until you ask her herself," his friend explains calmly and reaches into a pocket in his robes to get out a Chocolate Frog.

"Don't you think this is a bad idea?" Harry asks incredulously and waves his hand at the box in a vague gesture, indicating what he means. "I mean, it's _Malfoy_. You hated him more than I in school."

The Chocolate Frog is unwrapped and vanishes in Ron's mouth before he snorts at the card the sweet usually comes with. Ron chews thoughtfully and swallows before answering. "Yeah, that's right. I didn't like the git. But I think he already paid for what he did in school and during the war by having You Know Who as his houseguest. And, as we already talked about, nobody deserves what he got in the end."

"But you think it's a bad idea," Harry prods with a frown, and Ron levels a meaningful gaze at him.

"Harry, even if I'd think so, you already made your decision. And after sixth year, everybody who calls themselves your friend should know that no amount of talking will stop you from doing what you want. So I'd rather help you and make sure you won't get hurt instead of sulking because you didn't listen."

"But I was right in sixth year. Malfoy _was_ up to something," Harry feels the need to point out again, and Ron grins. "Yeah. So maybe you're right this time as well and you can help him at least in _some _way. And you won't find out if you don't talk to his mother."

He gets up from the chair and straightens his robes before putting the card from the Chocolate Frog on top of the cardboard box, face up. Harry's own face looks back at him, and Ron taps on it, saying, "so be your usual hero self and go rescue your school nemesis."

With a last wink and a wave, Ron turns away and walks out of the office.

* * *

The first thing Harry sees upon opening the box is a broken wand. It's about eleven inches long, the smooth, elegant black wood snapped above the ornate round handle, and Harry picks it up gingerly, all too aware of the importance a wand has to a witch or wizard. After all, he's been holding more wands than most in his almost twenty-four years of living, especially during the war. He wonders briefly which core Narcissa's wand has as he idly brushes a finger over the crack in the wood—maybe Dragon heartstring as her husband's, or Unicorn tail hair like her son's wand.

The thought makes him remember the small box safely tucked away in his closet. Inside, wrapped in a scrap of velvet, is Malfoy's wand, the one Harry used against Voldemort, the Expelliarmus still the last spell cast with it since six years. He's meant to give it back to Malfoy since Hermione told him that wands with a Unicorn hair core are very attached to their first owner, but Harry never got the chance and eventually forgot all about it. The small information on Wandlore had confused him a bit, since he'd felt Malfoy's wand react almost _friendly_ to him when he took it from its owner, a tingling sensation of welcome travelling up his arm when he closed his hand around it and ripped it from Malfoy's hand.

With a sigh and soft shake of his head, Harry brushes the thought aside and takes out the file, leaning back in his chair as he skims over the information about the hearing until he finds a page with Narcissa's addresses after the war. There are only two on it, the first, Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire, crossed out with red ink. Beneath it is an address from one of the more wealthy parts of Muggle London, what's at the same time as surprising as it isn't.

On one hand, Harry would have thought a woman with Narcissa's history and beliefs on blood-purity would prefer to stay in a Wizarding community like Hogsmeade, but then again she most likely wouldn't be welcome there for the same reasons. And of course, a place where nobody really cared about whatever their neighbours spend their time with as in Knockturn Alley wouldn't be able to provide the luxury and comforts a woman of Narcissa's upbringing is accustomed to.

Harry writes the address on the first empty piece of parchment he finds on his desk.

* * *

He waits until Thursday afternoon to go through with his plan, leaving the office early and Apparating to the Apparition point in Narcissa's new neighbourhood, hoping she will be home. Fearing she might refuse his enquiry to visit her to talk if he would've sent an owl first, he decided to go ahead and simply knock on the door, the element of surprise on his side hopefully preventing her from shutting the door in Harry's face.

The address from the files guides him to a Victorian semidetached, twin-storey house with red brick walls and a projecting alcove next to the front door. It looks—pretty, almost romantic with the ivy winding up the side and around the window on the first floor. The garden is well taken care of, the lawn neatly trimmed and the flower beds in full bloom with different colourful flowers spreading their petals for the early summer sun. All in all, Narcissa Malfoy's home looks like it could feature on a pamphlet to advertise the neighbourhood, and Harry smiles softly when he walks up to the white picket fence, despite his nervousness over her reaction.

He takes a steeling breath and rings the doorbell, listening for sounds from inside, almost stupidly relieved when there are footsteps nearing the door after a few moments. Narcissa herself opens the door, surprise flickering over her face when she sees Harry standing there.

"Mr. Potter," she greets him, sculptued eyebrows raised, and he notices that her free hand is brushing over her emerald green robes. Harry has hidden his own beneath a glamour as to not draw attention to the clothing uncommon for a Muggle neighbourhood, and the corners of his mouth twitch when he sees Narcissa hasn't given up on everything from the Wizarding World by moving into this house.

"Mrs Malfoy," he says and inclines his head slightly, settling for a soft, reassuring smile. "Can I come in?"

She seems taken aback by the question, fingers tightening in the green cloth of her robes before quickly letting go. "I don't understand. One of your colleagues has already been here this year, and I thought—"

Harry stops her with a hasty shake of his head. "I'm not here on Ministry or Auror business, Mrs Malfoy. I'd like to talk to you, but would prefer to do it inside. If you don't mind, of course," he hurries to add as soon as a thin line appears between her eyebrows. However, Narcissa takes a step to the side and opens the door further, obviously inviting him inside.

The interior of the house is as tasteful as the outside, subtly elegant with dark cherry wood floor boards and silver ornate tapestry, yet it lacks the darkness dominating Malfoy Manor while not being too bright and cheery. There are a lot of flowers, white lilies, Harry thinks with his lack of knowledge about flowers and herbs, and orchids of the same colour with sprinkles of pink on their petals.

Narcissa guides him through the hall into the drawing room where she gestures him to sit down on a white settee with flower prints and clawed wooden feet. "Tea?" she asks and barely waits for his answering nod before she calls a House-elf by the name of Minnie and orders her to make some tea. When the pillowcase-clad form of the elf vanishes through a door, Narcissa settles down in the armchair across from Harry, back straight and hands neatly folded in her lap to hide the way her fingers nervously clench and unclench in her robes. Harry clears his throat self-consciously, suddenly at a loss for what to say. He hasn't planned this far, more concerned about getting her to talk to him to begin with to think any further, something he now regrets.

However, since the truth has helped him so far in regards to her, and he really doesn't know what else to say, he begins, "I visited Draco in the hospital."

At his words, Narcissa's face goes through a mix of emotions in rapid succession—surprise, confusion, sadness, anger, and finally, mistrust. "Why?" Her voice is sharp and full of suspicion, eyes narrowing dangerously as she leans in slightly, and Harry shakes his head quickly, not in response to her question but to deny her suspicions.

"I wanted to know why he's there," he explains. "And if there really isn't a way for me to help him. You can talk to Healer Welling and his apprentice. She was there with me the whole time I was in the room and will be able to tell you that I neither went there to gloat nor harmed him in any way."

Narcissa opens her mouth to say something, the frown on her face slightly softer than before, but Minnie chooses that moment to return with the tea, setting the tray down on the coffee table between them. Harry takes the pause in their conversation to take a deep breath, watching as Narcissa dismisses the elf and turns to pour them both tea in chinaware that looks—at least to Harry—alarmingly delicate. He accepts his cup with a muttered thanks, too worried about not dropping it than with not being impolite.

They sip on their teas in heavy silence until Narcissa sets her cup back down on its saucer and leans back in her chair, now more relaxed than before. Her eyes are sharp when she focuses on Harry, but not so much with reproach than with curiosity, as she says, "tell me, Mr. Potter, why are you so concerned for my son's health?"

Harry doesn't look away or flinches under her intense gaze, instead schools his face into a calm expression, keeping his voice determined but not harsh. "I already told you, I owe him my life as much as you and want to do what I can to repay my debt. As I did for you."

Narcissa hums and looks at her hands, lips pursed, before she raises her head again. "And I already told you the Healers believe it's highly unlikely he will ever be cured. That he will remain in his current state."

"Yet you haven't given up on him," Harry points out and earns a small, albeit sad, smile in return.

"No, I haven't."

Harry leans back and looks at her, at the perfect way her blonde hair is arranged to fall in soft waves over her shoulders, the strands at the sides of her face held back by a clip at the back of her head. Her crisp and ironed robes, the subtle makeup that can't quite hide the lines of age and worry on her face, the subtle red lipstick he remembers from the last battle. Narcissa Malfoy is still beautiful, despite what she's been through, but her son's condition is wearing her down, shows itself in the way her shoulders nearly slump together with her spine, the way her hair thins and starts to lose its former shine, how the frown lines dig deeper, the tinge of grey on her skin.

"Tell me what happened," Harry says softly into the silence and notices that he almost, _almost_, sounds pleading. Narcissa looks at him for a long moment, eyes searching his face, and Harry holds his breath. After some time, she nods, almost imperceptibly, and takes her cup in both her hands as if she intends to use its warmth to anchor herself to the present to not get lost in the past.

"It was a punishment," she begins, and although Harry expected as much, he can still feel his heart drop, and he has to swallow against the lump in his throat. "After Draco was not able to kill Albus Dumbledore, the Dark Lord found the best way to punish my son was by forcing him to use the Unforgivables on others." Harry nods, for he saw that already in his nightly excursions into Voldemort's head, but she doesn't seem to notice him, staring off into mid-distance, seeing something Harry can't. "He hated it," she goes on. "I could see it on his face. His fear, and his pain. But Slytherins have a great amount of self-preservation, and so he did what he had to do to not to become a victim of the Cruciatus himself. Until you escaped from the manor."

The ticking of the clock in the following silence is too loud, and Harry feels bands of iron tightening around his chest, pushing against his ribcage with unforgiving determination. Outside, a car drives by.

"What happened?" Harry asks again after more moments of silence, voice breathless, and her gaze snaps to his face, focusing on him before it drops back to the tea in her hands.

"There was a girl. Muggle-born. Barely older than twelve years. The Dark Lord picked her especially for Draco. He let Bellatrix torture her first, and by the time my son was to cast the Cruciatus on her, she was not more than a bloody bundle on the floor.

"I don't know what happened when he looked into your face and refused to identify you, Mr. Potter, but the courage he seemed to have found then persisted. When the Dark Lord ordered him to curse the girl, he hesitated. And when he looked up, I could see in his face what he was about to do. What he was about to say."

There are tears in her eyes now, but Narcissa doesn't notice them, or else she would have wiped them away by now with as much dignity as possible. Instead, she blinks, and the first tear makes it way down her cheek to be followed by others. "He refused to obey the order, and the Dark Lord responded by casting the curse on Draco." Her voice is barely above a whisper by now, and Minnie appears without prompting to hand her mistress a handkerchief which Naricssa takes but only clutches in her free hand while the other holds on to the cup. She's too caught in her own memories to notice what's happening around her, and Harry isn't even sure she knows whom she's telling this to, or that he's still sitting here.

And then she says something that makes Harry's breath catch in his throat.

"He screamed for you," Narcissa tells him and her hand shakes when she sets the cup back onto the saucer, porcelain clinking against porcelain in an uneven rhythm. "The Dark Lord tortured him for hours and he screamed for you the whole time. Even when he was so hoarse no sound would come out any longer, I could see his lips forming your name. Until he suddenly stopped."

Images crash over Harry, unforgiving and cruel, vivid. He is standing in Malfoy Manor, in the empty and dark drawing room he was brought to himself by Greyback's Snatchers, and there, on the soiled carpet, surrounded by a circle of Death Eaters, lies Draco Malfoy, writhing, squirming and convulsing with the pain running through every last nerve of his body. He can see Malfoy arching his back until his shoulders lift off the floor, his head and folded legs the only connection to it, muscles straining and bulging beneath his skin, hands seeking for something to hold onto and fingers scratching over the floorboards and carpet, sweat and tears covering his face, and his mouth open while his abused vocal cords scream Harry's name over the gleeful laughter and sneers of Voldemort's followers.

When Harry leaves Narcissa's house later, his hands are still shaking and his legs are still weak.

* * *

He gets nightmares again, but this time they aren't filled with the faces of the dead accusing him of failing, no skeletal fingers pointing at him, yet he's still screaming that he's sorry, _so sorry_, and his words fall on deaf ears. It's Malfoy he's apologizing to now, kneeling in front of his hospital bed while he holds a limp hand in both of his own and begs to be forgiven as dull, grey eyes stare right through him, before the scene changes and he stands over Malfoy's squirming body, wand in his hand and pointed at the other boy, his voice soft and not his own when he says, "Crucio," and listens to the screams with delight.

Ron looks at him with barely concealed worry when Harry comes to work each morning with dark bruises under his eyes. But Harry doesn't want to talk about it.

It takes him a week to finally find the strength to talk about it to his best friends, and when he does, he pauses often and hides his shaking hands by pushing them beneath his thighs while he sits on the couch in Hermione and Ron's flat and stares at his cup with tea that is still untouched and long cold by the time he finishes. Hermione's hand flies to her mouth when she hears of Malfoy refusing to torture a twelve year old Muggle-born, and when Harry looks up, he can make out unshed tears in her eyes. For long moments, all three of them sit in silence, and Ron gets up and wordlessly takes the Firewhiskey out of the cupboard, bringing three glasses with him.

"To Draco," Harry says when he raises his glass, and his friends echo his salute before they all throw their heads back and drink the three fingers of whiskey in one go.


	5. Chapter 5

**AN:** Thank you all for the reviews, favourites and follows! I'm always happy to see the numbers grow. Now, we'll get to the scene you've all waited for-will Harry be able to help Draco? Or is he maybe lost forever like the Longbottoms?

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**Five**

Narcissa's letter reaches him on Wednesday morning in the second week after his visit to her, being brought to his desk by an over-enthusiastic boy from the Ministry Owlery who stands shifting his weight from one foot to the other in front of Harry's desk until he takes pity and asks him with a reassuring smile if he can do anything for him. One hastily written autograph and wordless spell to clean the owl droppings from the poor boy's shoulder as soon as he turns his back, Harry finally inspects the letter closer. His name is written in flowing and elegant italics, and when he turns it around, he's surprised to find the Black family crest on the back of the envelope.

There are only two members of the family left, and since Andromeda would never use the crest of the family that disowned her, Harry has an assumption from whom the letter comes, one that is quickly confirmed when he opens the envelope and takes out the thrice folded parchment inside.

_Dear Mr. Potter,_ Harry reads, _I will be visiting Draco this afternoon at six o'clock sharp and would be glad to have your company during this visit. _

_If you decide to join me, I will wait for you in the visitor's tearoom on the fifth floor of the hospital._

_Please send your response as soon as possible to my home address._

_Sincerely, _

_Narcissa Malfoy_

_PS: Please excuse my use of the Black family crest, but I feared the Malfoy crest or the use of my name would draw too much attention to this letter. _

"Who's it from?" Ron asks after Harry has read three times through the few lines in front of him and still not told him what it is about, but Harry shakes his head in response and gets up from his chair.

"Do you think we have time to go by 'Mione's office?" he asks although he's already walking towards the door, and Ron shrugs with a dismissive glance at the case file in front of them, deciding that the reports of a rogue Werewolf pack can wait half an hour longer.

Together, the two Aurors walk past the cubicles of the Auror Office and towards the Wizengamot Administration Service where they find Hermione leaning over a couple of open files, chewing on a quill while her eyes flicker from one parchment to the other.

"'Mione," Harry says and knocks on the open door to get her attention, going on when she looks up, "do you have a moment?" Hermione nods with a bemused expression and seeks out her boyfriend with her eyes, but the only thing Ron has to offer in turn is a helpless shrug of his own as Harry closes the office door behind them and then walks over to her desk in wide strides.

"I got a letter from Narcissa Malfoy just now," he explains and holds said letter up for them to see, but before Hermione can take it from him, he says, "she invited me to come with her today when she visits Malfoy."

Hermione gasps and snatches the letter from him as if she needs to make sure he's telling the truth and Ron steps around the desk to read over her shoulder, his mouth silently forming the words while his face becomes more and more incredulous. "But Harry," Hermione exclaims when she's read through the letter and waves it around excitedly, much to Ron's distress, who hasn't finished yet and tries taking the parchment from his oblivious girlfriend. "That's wonderful! She finally wants you to help and you don't have to feel bad about doing it behind her back any more!"

At her words, Harry deflates and sinks into the nearest chair, head dropping until his chin is only inches from his chest while his friends look at him in confusion. "I know," he says and rubs his hands over his closed eyes. "She wants my help, and that's the problem!"

"I don't understand," Hermione says softly when he looks up again. "I thought you wanted her to accept your help."

"Yes, sure," Harry admits with a grimace. "But what if I _can't_ help? Then I got her hopes up for nothing."

Groaning, he lets his head fall on the back of the chair, his eyes closed, and he doesn't notice Hermione walking around her desk towards him until she puts her hands on the sides of his face, looking at him upside down. Harry blinks his eyes open as a stray strand of her curly hair brushes over his nose when she leans over him and says, "Harry James Potter, you have done so many impossible things in your life, never running away when someone needed your help, even when that meant you had to sacrifice your own life—don't start running now. If you can't help Malfoy, you at least tried, and if you don't at least try, I'm certain you'll regret it for a very long time. Answer Mrs. Malfoy and write her you will join her today—or if your schedule doesn't allow it then another time. But do it, not only for her or Malfoy, but for_ yourself_."

Harry swallows with an audible click in his throat and looks up at her reassuring smile before turning his head to silently ask his other friend what he thinks about it. Ron grins and shrugs, gesturing towards Hermione. "What she said."

Rolling his eyes, Harry sits up and reaches for quill and parchment to write a response.

* * *

Narcissa is wearing midnight blue this time, the colour so dark that it looks like black until the light reflects off the cloth in a deep blue. There is no red lipstick today, Harry notices when he brushes ashes and Floo powder from his simple grey robes, and although there's still an air of elegance and dignity around Narcissa, it seems far more subdued with the simplicity of clothes, makeup and hairdo. She looks like she's mourning, he thinks and then realizes that, in a way, she is.

"Mr. Potter," she greets him and extends a hand that looks a lot paler than the times before in contrast with her dark clothes. Nodding, Harry takes her hand in his, grateful that she said his name quietly as to not draw too much attention to them.

"Thank you for inviting me," he tells her, truthfully, when they walk towards the stairwell and her only response is a soft shake of her head, making Harry wonder if she doesn't see this as the grand gesture he thinks it to be, or if she means he shouldn't be grateful in the first place. He doesn't ask.

The Apprentice Healer from before is waiting for them when Harry opens the door to the ward and lets Narcissa enter, and Leatrice seems surprised that he's come back, and at that together with her patient's mother. However, she reigns it in quickly and slips the professional, calm mask onto her face she wore when she warned him that Malfoy's condition might be unsettling to him, and greets them with curt nods before falling in step beside them.

This time, she unlocks the door without a word to Harry, not even glancing at him over her shoulder like before as she walks ahead of them into the room and announces to Malfoy that he has visitors. Malfoy doesn't react. Harry thought he would have gotten used to the idea by now, but it still sends a spike of helpless pain through his chest, and he hesitates for a moment in the doorway before stepping through it.

Like last time, Malfoy sits propped against the headboard of the bed, the pillow serving as a cushion between his back and the wood, eyes unseeing as they stare at the taupe wall on the other side of the room. He doesn't react when Narcissa sits down on the edge of the back and wraps an arm around his shoulders, pulling him closer so that his head rests against her chest, ear at the height of her heart, her free hand cradling his head while the other rubs soothing circles into his shoulder. She whispers quiet nothings into his hair, brushing her lips to his shorn head between words and reassurances. Leatrice leaves the room after a few minutes and Harry allows himself to sit down on the armchair next to the bed, his eyes never leaving the two Malfoys sitting on the bed, even when the Apprentice Healer returns with tea and pushes a steaming paper cup into his hand and sets the other onto the table. The young woman excuses herself again and says to call her if they need anything, throwing a last, lingering glance at the pair before she slips out of the door to tend to her other patients.

Harry says nothing, only watches, his eyes searching Malfoy for any reaction—a frown, the curl of his lips, a drawn out blink, even the twitching of a finger where his hand rests on his mother's thigh, but he comes up with nothing.

_Because there _is _nothing_, he reminds himself. _Voldemort tortured it out of him_.

The thought makes rage spread hot in his chest with burning tendrils extending throughout his body until he nearly crushes the paper cup in his hand and has to put it down on the bedside table next to Narcissa's before he scalds himself. Forcing himself to take deep breaths, Harry relaxes his hands, but the anger is still there, seething inside his ribcage as he looks at the empty shell that was once his rival.

Never would he have thought that he would _miss_ the taunting and sneers, the sharp tongue and the stinging insults and nicknames, but now he would give close to anything to see any kind of emotion in those unseeing eyes, even hate and disgust.

But there is nobody who he could bargain with for the return of Malfoy's sanity, and so he sits while Narcissa comforts her son on the bed and the shadows lengthen and change angle as the sun slowly descends. By the time Narcissa excuses herself from the room, her eyes glinting with wetness, he doesn't know how long he's already here, and simply nods to acknowledge what she's said, not able to trust his own voice at the moment. The door closes with a click behind her, and Harry turns his head slowly back to the bed where Malfoy is still sitting on top of the blankets, leaning against the headboard. He's slipped down a bit, and Harry's back aches in sympathy when he sees the slightly uncomfortable-looking position.

It's a spur-of-the-moment decision that makes him climb onto the bed and straddle Malfoy's hips, reaching out to push his hands beneath his shoulders and lift him up to resettle him straighter against the headboard. As he does so, the back of Harry's hands brush against the naked skin of the inside of Malfoy's arms, right where the short sleeves of the white pyjama top end.

Malfoy flinches.

Harry reels back with a gasp that rings in the silence of the room, his chest heaving as he stares for long moments at the man in front of him, squinting his eyes as he searches, desperately, for any proof that he didn't just imagine the movement, the spark of electricity that seemed to move through both of them where they connected, skin on skin. He looks for a small glint of awareness, another movement, a twitch. There's nothing.

But Harry isn't ready to give up yet, so he licks his lips and leans back in again, hands hesitant and trembling as he reaches out and lets them lie down on Malfoy's shoulders. No spark.

"Malfoy?" Harry is surprised to hear the hoarseness of his voice, so he clears his throat and tries once more. "Malfoy, can you hear me?" No reaction.

Harry lets his head drop to his chest and takes a deep, shuddering breath. He'd hoped—well, that was stupid, he's no miracle healer who cures diseases or insanity with a touch, and even in the Wizarding world that's something seldom heard of. He's just Harry, Harry Potter, who only survived a Killing Curse because his mother sacrificed herself for him, and then did so a second time because Voldemort destroyed the Horcrux instead of him. His whole life he's been stumbling through dangers with luck saving his arse, and apart from casting a few Disarming spells at the right time, he did nothing, coincidence and Fortuna did all the rest.

Still.

He can't help himself, and he doesn't know why he does what he does next, but his hands slip towards Malfoy's neck end then up, cupping his face on both sides and tilting it back so that the angle of his stare feels like he at least _might_ be looking at Harry, and then Harry speaks, words coming to his lips without sense or prompting, but he can't stop as soon as he begins, just going with the flow.

"Malfoy," he begs and doesn't dare blinking for the fear Malfoy could react again and he will miss it. "He's dead, Malfoy. Voldemort is dead. Gone. Forever. He can't hurt you any more. Neither you, or your family, nor anybody else. It's over, Malfoy. _It's over_."

There's a sharp inhalation.

And then the world stops spinning as it's thrown of course, and then resettles, things falling back into place as it tilts just the right way to return everything to where it belongs—because Harry didn't make that noise, _Malfoy did_.

There's a sharp pain in his back as Malfoy's arms wind around it and his fingers dig in, hard enough that Harry just knows there will be bruises, without exaggerating, but it doesn't matter, because Mafloy opens his mouth again and there's another sound, a sob, a wail, the pointy face that was completely emotionless seconds ago, now morphing, eyes squinting before they open again, looking up at Harry, full of tears and recognition, and _pleading for help_.

Malfoy is shaking with sobs, arms trembling as he strains his muscles to hold onto Harry, but he doesn't have to, Harry isn't going anywhere right now, because Draco is saying his name like a mantra, begging for help, his face buried against Harry's ribcage as if he wants to crawl inside and never come out again. "Potter—Potter—_help me—Potter!_"

And Harry is hushing him, one hand rubbing soothing circles on Draco's back while the other rests on his neck, thumb brushing over the short and soft strands of hair as he promises everything will be all right now, Voldemort is gone, forever, everything is okay.

The sobbing doesn't stop, and Harry shifts them around on the bed, telling Draco it's okay, he won't go anywhere, when the fingers clenching the back of his robes tighten as he slightly withdraws, and he has to reach behind himself to ease them away so that he can reverse their position, sitting back against the headboard and pulling Draco into his lap, cradling his head against the crook of his neck, one hand wrapped tightly around Draco's narrow waist, the other holding onto his nape, not caring that his former school nemesis is wrapping his limbs around Harry like an octopus, legs around his hips and arms around his ribcage, holding on as if his life depends on it. Harry is rocking him like a child, whispering his reassurances straight into Draco's ear as the other still sobs and shakes and pleads, voice weak and raspy from disuse and the sobs and the wailing. But Harry doesn't care, not even when he feels tears and snot leaving a wet patch on the shoulder of his robes, because Draco is there, he's _back _from wherever his mind has gone to, even if he's crying, and that's all Harry has hoped for.

He doesn't notice Leatrice coming to find out where the ruckus is coming from, doesn't hear her startled gasp and the call for someone to get Healer Welling, right this bloody instance, doesn't see Narcissa coming back and nearly collapsing when her knees go weak as she sees her son clinging to Harry Potter and then starting to sob herself and trying to get to her son until Leatrice has to pour a Calming Draught down her throat so she doesn't hurt herself when another Healer holds her back.

What Harry notices, though, are the hands trying to make him let go of Draco, and he glares, nearly snarls, his fingers only tightening more, and the cups next to him on the bedside table explode with a burst of wild magic, spraying lukewarm tea every which way. Then, the Healers seem to get the message and take a step back, looking with wary expressions as the Saviour of the Wizarding World comforts and soothes the former Death Eater in his arms with caresses and quiet reassurances none of them can make quite out.

After an hour, Draco finally goes limp in Harry's arms, having cried himself to sleep, and the Healers have to wait another thirty minutes before Harry finally lets go, reluctantly, and with eyes full of silent threats.


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: **THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH! You all made me so very, very happy with your reviews and I am glad you liked the last chapter as much as you did!

* * *

**Six**

"I take it your son is an Occlumens," Healer Welling asks later in hushed tones, and Narcissa simply nods, her hand carding restlessly through her son's hair. She refused to leave his room to talk about the events that lead to Draco 'waking up', greedily drinking in every flinch and silent sigh her son makes in his sleep, her gaze never leaving his face as she watches his eyes moving beneath the closed lids and his eyebrows draw together and relax again. Harry can understand. He's standing next to the bed, his thighs brushing the mattress and his hand resting on top of it, itching to edge closer and touch, make sure Draco is still there and hasn't retreated to that place nobody could reach him for six years. He doesn't dare.

"Well, that explains that," Welling says and rubs his chin thoughtfully. Harry reluctantly tears his eyes away from the sleeping blonde in the bed and looks at the Healer, asking, "what exactly does that explain?"

The Healer turns his attention to Harry, apparently glad for the audience, an intrigued glint in his dark eyes as he explains, "as you might know, Occlumency is used to shut away information in one's mind from a Legilimens. A mediocre skilled Occlumens can clear his mind of anything, someone advanced can hide selected information. I am not sure how good an Occlumens Draco is, and I assume what happened was an accident, the pain from the torture he was subjected to too great an influence for the whole thing being deliberate. However, I am sure Draco used Occlumency to not only clear his mind, but to shut away _himself_ and thereby prevent further mental scarring."

Welling regards his patient for a long moment, his eyes clouding over as he thinks, and Harry's fingers twitch, so he curls them inwards into a fist. "That still doesn't explain why nobody was able to reach him," Harry says into the silence that has settled over them. _Nobody but me_, he adds in his mind and can't quite place the feeling fluttering in his stomach at the thought.

The Healer shrugs. "It's all only speculations, but I have a theory," he continues. "In his despair, Draco designed something similar to a door to lock himself in. Every door has a key, and to that door," he points at Draco, "there was only one very, very special key."

His eyes sharpen as they turn on Harry. "Mrs Malfoy has told you what happened?"

Harry nods, and adds silently, "he screamed for my help." Just like he did an hour ago, shaking and clinging and begging Harry to help him. Fingers of ice brush along Harry's spine, and he tries to suppress a shudder. Welling doesn't seem to notice, because he simply nods.

"Exactly. Draco thought you were the only one able to kill You Know Who and end the war, and hence, in a broader sense, the only one to save _him_. Now, beneath the influence of the Cruciatus curse, it was of course hard for him to concentrate, and so he designed the door, and the key—a complex one consisting of your touch, your voice, and special words only spoken by you, Mr. Potter. That is why nobody could get through the door over the past six years.

"_You _were Draco's key, and _only _you."

* * *

Narcissa falls asleep shortly after Welling leaves the room to write down his conclusions in Draco's file, and Harry doesn't wake her before he goes, knowing that she won't leave her son's side now anyway. He'd like to stay as well and see with his own eyes that Draco will still be the same when he opens his eyes again and has not decided to hide once more behind the door Welling described to Harry. But he can't. Draco doesn't like him, even if for a bit, he needed Harry—and only Harry—but now he's back, and he has his mother and the Healers to help him get over the memories of the time in the manor in Voldemort's companies. Harry's part here is done, and although he doesn't want to come back, he's sure he wouldn't be welcome with open arms.

Especially not when someone tells Draco about what happened, how he clung to the sworn enemy of his school years like a frightened child. No. Harry won't come back. Maybe only to return the Hawthorn wand—or maybe he'll just send it with an owl, he can't imagine Draco reacting kindly after everything. If there's a hearing, he'll gladly testify and tell of everything he can to cast a better light at Draco's time as Death Eater; how he was reluctant to let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, how he did it to protect his family, and in the end couldn't kill Dumbledore even then, how he refused first to identify Harry and then to torture a twelve year old girl. Harry will do that, if need be, and then, he will retreat from Draco's life again.

It's not like it was hard before.

There is no reason for it to be now.

He's confused and tired, is all, still riding the heights from feeling _needed _again, utterly and completely. It's just his hero complex. He'll just get to bed and sleep it off, and tomorrow, everything will be normal again.

For one moment, only this small moment, Harry allows himself to brush his hand through the blonde strands of hair, fingertips lingering at Draco's nape where the hairs are the finest and softest. Then, he pulls his hand back, cradling it against his chest and holding the wrist with his other hand, his pulse fluttering quickly beneath the skin there.

Everything will be better in the morning. It always is.

(Except for how it isn't.)

* * *

The rumours about a Werewolf pack roaming Scotland, as Harry finds out, are true, and soon enough a quarter of the Auror Office is on its feet and working fervently to find it. Harry works overtime and even shows up in the office on the days he's supposed to be off-duty, dodging Denley and going as far as crouching behind a large ficus to hide from the Head Auror. Hermione is telling him he's burying himself in work to forget what happened with Malfoy, while Ron only asks him to get enough sleep at least, since a sleep-deprived partner does more bad than good, and Harry denies the first and acknowledges the second, going straight to bed when he comes home from the office. The letters he gets from Narcissa end up unopened in a drawer in his desk at home. He tells himself it doesn't matter.

And so his life revolves around eye-witness interviews, interrogations of suspects and paperwork about both until Denley catches him one Sunday two weeks in and threatens to use the Draught of Living Death on him the next time he shows up on his free day. Harry goes home obediently and reads through the files on his sofa before coming back on Monday until he finally finds a pattern and can pinpoint a sixty mile radius in which the pack will be active when the next full moon comes. Denley admits begrudgingly that Harry did good work but still tells him that the threat with the potion remains if he doesn't get some bloody sleep.

Harry does, and three days afterwards he's on his way to Scotland with a group of seven other Aurors, including Ron, to scout the area for trails and whatnot. The full moon comes and with it the pack, more specifically, five Werewolves that had been infected by Greyback during the war, and arresting them is surprisingly easy. A couple of well-placed Stunners and Binding charms immobilizing them enough to clap on the silver shackles, and Harry and Ron's team of Aurors returns victorious with only a few scratches that are easily healed by the DMLE Mediwizards.

To show his gratitude, Denley gives Harry three days off, and when Harry says he doesn't need them, the Head Auror takes a purple potion out of a drawer in his desk and waves it in Harry's face, saying he couldn't convince Minister Kingsley to allow him to use the Draught of Living Death on one of his Aurors—especially not Harry bloody Potter—but he'd turn a blind eye on the infusion of a Sleeping draught, and Harry should know that Denley _will _find a way to use it on him if he doesn't get home and into bed right now, he swears by Merlin's ruffled knickers!

So Harry goes home again. And he reads. And watches telly. And then he reads again. And then he sleeps for a bit. Lather, rinse, repeat, and by the end there are still one and a half days left and Harry decides he needs to get out.

He owls Neville and arranges to meet him the next day, a Sunday, at Hogwarts. Neville is still wearing his sleeping robes when he answers the Floo on Sunday morning, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands as he asks around a yawn, "'hat time is it?"

Harry looks at his watch and says eight am, and Neville groans but doesn't comment, telling him to wait while he gets dressed and then inviting him to come with him to the great hall and get some breakfast, since no student would be up by now, apart from those not having gone to sleep in the first place to learn for the exams, because nobody in their right mind would get up at this time on a Sunday.

They walk through the corridors mostly in companionable silence, Harry commenting only sometimes on the changes he can see having been made after the final battle—a stained-glass window depicting one of the house crests here, a new staircase there. For a brief moment, he sees the school as he saw it last, with collapsing walls and smouldering wooden beams, rubble blocking corridors and black blood stains smeared on the floors. But then the phantom images are gone, end all he sees is the yellow-tinged stones of the castle, illuminated by the warm glow of a new day, and that, like almost nothing else, can make him believe that they can leave the history behind themselves without forgetting it, and face the future with hope to change what's important, one step at a time. The thought makes him smile for the rest of the way to the Great Hall.

As it turns out, Neville was right about nobody being up at this time on a Sunday. There are a few teachers up, some he recognizes from his own school years, like Headmistress McGonagall—who's delighted to see Harry, and promptly offers him a position as DADA teacher, since the one-year-only-curse seems to be still intact, the current professor has just handed over her resignation because he will go on a journey to find himself as soon as the year ends, and it doesn't matter that he's already edging on sixty years—Professor Trelawney, whom Harry greets with a nod but doesn't try to engage in conversation lest she feels the need to tell him of his early death which she read from her coffee dregs this morning, and Professor Flitwick, who makes a noise close to a squeak and shakes Harry's hand enthusiastically before trying to start a conversation about Harry's formidable Patronus charm, from which Neville, thankfully, rescues him by excusing them both with a made up story about a hangover that must be cured by a lot of greasy food. Flitwick lets them go, and Harry tells Neville silently that he owes him one, something Neville laughs about but promises he'll remember the next time McGonagall needs someone to hold a speech about the war for the anniversary of the battle.

Apart from the teachers, there are eleven students sitting at the House tables, three Slytherins, four Gryffindors, and two Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs each, all of them looking like seventh-years and staring tiredly into their coffees like a bunch of Divination students trying to read the N.E.W.T. questions from the bottom of their cups. They don't speak, only grunt at each other to get their class mates to hand them one thing or another so they can pile it onto their plates. Harry almost pities them. _Almost_, because the image is far too amusing, and he smiles into his own coffee.

After a breakfast that was indeed positively greasy, they go to the greenhouse, and Harry helps Neville repotting young Mandrakes, laughing at the pink earmuffs Neville has 'inherited' with the position as Herbology professor from Professor Sprout, and Neville tells him with a smirk that these earmuffs already belonged to Sprout's grandmother _and_ mother before she got them, and that he should show some respect for a heirloom such as this one.

By the time they get out of the greenhouse, it's already past noon, and they stop at the kitchens to coax the House-elves into preparing them a small lunch they can eat outside. Armed with a basket filled to the brim with sandwiches, pumpkin juice and treacle tart, Harry and Neville walk to the bank of the Great Lake, eating and chatting, and throwing their leftovers into the water for the Giant Squid as a treat. After that, they wander over the grounds, stopping at the Quidditch pitch to watch the Ravenclaw team play a casual game against the Hufflepuffs, since the Inter-House games are already over, and Harry is pleased to hear that Gryffindor once again managed to claim the cup.

With a smile, Harry watches from the stands as the players, clad in canary yellow and blue, soar through the sky, Chasers passing the Quaffle quickly from one to another while the Beaters keep the Bludgers either away from them or try to bat them at their direction, depending on the team they play for. And above all of them, the two Seekers hang in the air, circling the pitch on their brooms, heads turning every which way while they look for the small, golden Snitch flickering in the sunlight. Harry leans back and lets his mind drift to the times he was one of them, remembers the feel of his broom between his legs, the wind cutting his face and dragging on his robes when he went for a dive after the winged ball that would end the game. The rush when he was chasing it neck and neck with the opposing team's Seeker, dipping under the goal posts and dodging Bludgers, ripping the tip of his broom up to rise it when the Beaters of the other team decided he should suddenly fly between them, corkscrewing up and down in search. When he closes his eyes, he can see it, nearly feel it, a shoulder pressed against his own, arm along arm, as two Seekers go for the Snitch, diving in such an angle it almost feels like they're falling freely, the warmth of the body pressed up against his side almost as reassuring as it's troubling, hands reaching out for the golden sphere dancing ahead of them, and in the corner of his eye, a glint of green robes whipping in the wind and silver-blonde hair reflecting the sunlight.

Harry's eyes flutter open and he turns back to the game in front, seeking the Snitch, and he sees it before the Hufflepuff Seeker, watching as the girl goes for a dive and draws her opponent's attention to herself, the Ravenclaw following in a flash of blue robes, hair windswept, and the dance begins, the two fliers weaving around each other, pushing themselves to their limits until the Hufflepuff girl reaches out and then hold her hand up in triumph, whooping as the gold in her hand reflects the light and the game ends with the players with the Badger on their robes as winners. There's a lot of teasing and companionable claps on the back when the two teams are back on the ground, congratulating each other on the good game and promising to do it again next year, with Ravenclaw as the winner, or so they say.

"Things are different," Harry comments when he watches the players retreating from the pitch, going to the changing room to store away their brooms and take a shower.

"A lot has changed," Neville says with an easy smile. "What exactly do you mean?"

Harry gestures to the last few players vanishing into the changing rooms and then makes a sweeping gesture towards the Quidditch pitch as a whole, saying, "we never had these kinds of casual games against the other Houses. And if we'd had those, they would've ended in cheating. And a lot of blood."

Neville nods and snorts a laugh, leaning back to stretch a bit. "I can almost see that," he says and then his voice loses a bit of his amusement, a frown drawing his brows together as he explains. "The Headmistress has done a lot to encourage cooperation between the Houses without them losing their sense for competition. It wasn't easy, and it doesn't always work as good as you just witnessed, but we're getting there." He looks at his hands, thumb tracing a pale scar at the back of the left one.

"After the war, it was really bad. The first year barely a week went by without one of the Slytherins ending up in the Hospital Wing and someone in detention with Filch. Everybody seemed to hate the Slytherins, calling them Death Eater scum and jinxing and hexing them whenever they found one alone. You wouldn't find a single one, or even a group, walking through the corridors close to curfew. They always had their heads down as if they were hiding. Several got pulled out of school before the first term was over, and at the Sorting, whenever a first-year ended up in Slytherin, the other Houses didn't clap."

Neville shakes his head with a grimace and Harry frowns thoughtfully.

"It was disgusting, and people expected me to take their side against the Slytherins because of my role in the war, unable to understand that I wouldn't support any prejudice of _any_ kind and shape."

"Hermione never told me," Harry says. "I mean she was here with you, taking her N.E.W.T.s, but she never said anything."

Neville laughs, a loud guffaw that rumbles in his chest. "That's because she spent most of her time with her head in the books and hidden away either in the library or the common room. There isn't much to see when you're reading through Advanced Potions," he says without reproach but with fondness directed at their friend. "And she was seen as a hero. The great Hermione Granger, travelling with Harry Potter and Ron Weasley all over the country to find a way to defeat Voldemort. And the one time she did run into a couple Gryffindor fourth-years harassing a Slytherin second-year, she levitated them straight to the Headmistress' office, all three at once. After that, nobody really dared approaching her any more, apart from those already being her friends."

Harry laughs at the mental image of Hermione levitating three struggling Gryffindors towards McGonagall's office while reading a book, deaf to the cries to be let down, and heads turning while she marches through the corridors, a sniffling second-year Slytherin walking at her side.

"But it's getting better," Neville eventually says with a hopeful tone to his voice. "After all, things change."

Harry thinks of sneers and taunts and insults, and then of recognition in grey eyes and a head being shaken, of a blank face and the same eyes, now unseeing. And of hands clenching the back of his robes while legs wrap around his hips, a shaking body clinging to him, and the feel of his arm snaking around a narrow waist.

"Yeah," he says. "Things change."

* * *

Harry arrives at work on Monday whistling a catchy tune he heard on the wireless that morning, greeting everyone he knows when he sees them in the corridors with a cheery hello, and he doesn't care about the confused glances and wary nods and waves he receives in turn. Denley nearly hits a trainee with a spell when his wand goes off because he witnesses Harry wink at Holly Firmbrick, the sixty year old witch from the reception desk, and promptly casts an Imperius detection charm on The Boy Who Lived. Harry shoots the Head Auror a look that is half amused and half bemused, and Denley grabs the next Auror that walks past him to bark an order at the witch to look up everything they've got in the archives on possessions of any kind, and when she's finished she can go to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures to get a specialist to write a list on behaviour-altering Creature bites and their symptoms, and he needs it _yesterday_. And she can go find Granger and Weasley while she's at it.

Then he lumbers over to Harry, pushing his angular face so close to Harry's that their noses are nearly brushing, squinting at him until Harry has to bite his tongue to refrain from pointing out he should go to an optician if he has trouble seeing him clearly at such a distance. "What happened to you, Potter?" Denley asks and does something that sounds uncannily of sniffing.

"Did you just—_sniff me_?"

"Focus, Potter! Any bites," Denley pats down Harry's sides and digs his fingers into his muscles, looking for Merlin knows what, and then turns him around like a designer inspecting their latest masterpiece on their model, "any strange tasting drinks you can remember? Any blackouts or memory lapses?"

"Er, no. No bites. And no strange drinks or blackouts since the DMLE Christmas party last year," Harry says and blinks in confusion. Denley's head snaps up at his last words and his eyes narrow for an entirely different reason, his nostrils flaring. "Didn't you call in sick the day after the Christmas party?"

"Uh, yes, but I had a cold, and coupled with the alcohol, the Pepperup Potion had a malfunction?" He doesn't mention that the 'malfunction' didn't come from a non-existent cold, but from Holly Firmbrick's mean cocktail mixing skill. Harry still doesn't know what she put in there, but it was definitely lethal and should be studied by a Potions Master to check if it can be used as a weapon against suspects. As Molotovs—or grenades that get the suspects drunk on the fumes when shattered at their feet, perhaps.

Harry discards the train of thought when Ron walks towards them with a smirk so broad it nearly splits his face in half. Denley whirls around and points an accusing finger at Ron that makes the redhead put one hand on his chest as if to say, _who, me?_

"You," Denley confirms with another stab at the air with his forefinger, "what, in the name of Merlin's sparkly underpants, happened to Potter?"

Ron takes the last steps closer and circles Harry with a stern face, looking at him from every angle before inspecting his face thoroughly. "Oh, that's bad," he sighs after a bit, and Denley tenses, rounding on Ron and poking his chest repeatedly with a finger.

"What's bad? You better tell me right now, Weasley, or I'll get your girlfriend, no, your mother here," he growls, and Ron blanches for a second before regaining his composure.

"It's really bad, sir," he says and nods with a grave expression on his face. "I fear Harry is—in a good mood!"

There are snorts and stifled laughter coming from the cubicles around them, and Denley looks gobsmacked, and then, slowly, turns an alarming shade of purple. Ron's lips twitch. Harry hides a laugh by coughing. Quickly, the friends exchange a glance over the shoulder of the Head Auror, then Harry subtly inclines his head towards the door, and Ron nods as answer, almost indiscernible. From the back of the room, someone exclaims, "he's going to explode!" just as Ron and Harry bolt for the door, and the whole room starts moving with people either quickly leaving or ducking behind their desks and case files so they won't become a target.

Harry and Ron are already rounding the corner into the corridors, still running and nearly toppling over each other when behind them, Denley barks with a Sonorus enhanced voice, "POTTER! WEASLEY!"

They hide behind a conveniently large ficus when Ron whispers with a shudder, "do you think he'll get mum to come here?"

Harry only laughs.


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: **I know some of you would like me to update more frequently, but as it is, I really can't, sorry. Still, thanks very much for sticking with this little story of mine, and of course for the reviews, favs and follows! I hope you like this chapter, even though it caused me a lot of pain to write. The next one will be more fluffy and less angsty.

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**Seven**

Denley's chosen punishment for them is stocktaking the archives, but Harry and Ron accept it with as much remorse as the Head Auror's still slightly purple face allows, and even searching for a whole week through dusty books and tomes that haven't been touched or cleaned since six decades isn't enough to dampen Harry's high spirits. As a matter of fact, his good mood is so persistent, it survives Hermione nagging him about Malfoy whenever a chance offers itself.

"Don't you want to know how he's doing?" she asks one afternoon when she brings them pastries and pumpkin juice from the small bakery in the Atrium. Harry heaves a long-suffering sigh and bats at the dust cloud raising from the tome he just put down on the table with slightly too much force. "What _I _want isn't important, Hermione. Malfoy doesn't want me to know, so I won't ask."

"But how do you know he doesn't want you to know if you _don't ask_?" she shoots back immediately, and Harry rolls his eyes directing a glance at his other best friend to help, but Ron only shakes his head and says, "you're on your own, mate," before ducking behind a shelve and out of the line of fire.

"'Mione, it's Malfoy we're talking about," he explains as calmly as he can manage under the circumstances. "_Draco_ Malfoy, remember? Pure-blood Slytherin prince that went to school with us for six years? That ring any bells?"

"People change." She dismisses the argument quickly, and then goes on, softly, "he needs you."

Harry shakes his head and writes down the name of the tome in the list on the table with fast, jerky movements of his quill. "Wrong tense, Hermione. He _needed_ me. Past tense."

"Fine!" She throws her hands up in exasperation and turns to go, adding with a sly smirk, "if you're doing nothing about it, I'll do."

Harry watches her leave the room and shakes his head one last time as if to clear his mind of the ideas she tried implanting there. Then he takes the tome off the table and exchanges it for the next in the row, inspecting the title with a growing grin.

"Hey, Ron, does _Incidents caused by the Clothes-removal jinx_ sound any good to you?"

* * *

After knowing each other for so long, Harry should really know when to trust a threat made by Hermione Jean Granger and when not, and he has nobody to blame but himself when on Monday afternoon there's a knock on his office door and Narcissa Malfoy walks into the room upon being invited in.

"Mr. Potter." She inclines her head in greeting and then glances nervously at Ron who's looking back at her in unconcealed surprise. Harry clears is throat and turns to his friend. "Ron, could you give us a minute, please?"

Ron simply nods and closes the file he's been reading to take it with him, throwing a last glance over his shoulder before he leaves the room in a gesture that means to tell Harry he's going to retell his conversation with Narcissa to his best friend as soon as the woman leaves. Harry simply nods and then gestures to the chair on the other side of the desk, inviting Narcissa to sit.

"What can I do for you?" Leaning in over the table, he settles for a smile he usually uses with eye-witnesses, a reassuring and open twist of his lips that's meant to calm them and describe whatever they've seen, as unbelievable as it might seem—even in the Wizarding world. Narcissa simply raises one of her thin eyebrows as answer, the façade crumbling beneath the prodding of her gaze. Harry changes course.

"How is Draco?"

He winces inwardly when her lips tighten into a thin, bloodless line and her eyes turn to stone. There are still the three unopened letters, safely tucked away in his desk at home—safely in terms of _out of sight, out of mind_. It had felt like a good idea back then, because reading about Malfoy in his mother's letters would be tempting; tempting him to response, or to accept an invitation for dinner, to just check whatever Narcissa told him about her son's well-being is true. But surely, Malfoy is back home by now—it's been a month since that day after all, and Narcissa would have set up a room in her new home for her son, showering him with motherly love and tending to every last of his whims with joy, because it's been far too long since he asked her for anything. Surely, after six years of silence and apathy she'd welcome every crude remark with content like it was the sweetest of sounds.

"I see," Narcissa says now in clipped tones, forehead wrinkling with disapproval, and for the briefest of moments, Harry can see Andromeda in her, in the way her jaw tightens for barely a second to relax again, can hear her in the tone of voice Narcissa chooses unconsciously as if it is a trait reserved for the Black sisters. It confuses him so much his mouth falls open and snaps closed with a click of of his teeth.

"Pardon?"

Shaking her head slowly, Narcissa unclasps the clips on her purse and reaches inside, withdrawing a small phial from within. A silver substance swims inside, thicker than water and moving sluggish along the glass when she tilts the vial to the side and lets the light play on it, turning silver to white on the stringy texture. The vial thuds softly when she puts it down on the wood of the desk. Without a word of explanation, Narcissa stands and walks towards the door, hesitating with her hand on the handle.

"Even if you do not want _my_ gratitude, Mr. Potter, you still have it." The words are spoken in the direction of the door, and before Harry can make sense of her words, Narcissa has already left the room, leaving him behind with the bottled memories resting near the edge of the desk.

He doesn't pick them up, not then, and not later, when Ron comes back and asks him questions about what Narcissa wanted, which Harry gives monosyllabic answers to, partly because he doesn't know what happens himself, and partly because his gaze is drawn to the glittering liquid, taking his focus with it. Ron gives up after a while and grumbles something that Harry doesn't hear, too concentrated with not-looking at the phial.

It stands there until most of the lights in the Auror Office are out and almost everybody apart from the night shift is gone. Ron just left, telling him to not stay too long or else Denley would remind him of the potion tucked away in his own desk, and Harry reassured him with a small smile, waving at the open file in front of him with the promise he'll just finish this up and then go home, he only has to read through the final draft of his report.

A report that's forgotten when his finger close around the vial and he brings it up to look at the memories within, tilting the bottle this way and that, the warm yellow light of his desk lamp turning it more gold than silver where it touches the liquid.

Harry stands up, ignoring the way the mouth of the bottle and its cork dig into his palm when he closes his hand around it, hard, before forcing his muscles to relax a bit so he won't crush the glass and lose the memories. There is a Pensieve in the interrogation rooms to review memories of suspects and eye-witnesses alike, and his feet carry him there before he's even decided where he's going. The cork stopping the memories from spilling comes out easily and he turns the vial upside down above the stone basin, watching it drip into the liquid and form silvery clouds like ink in water, the smooth surface rippling like a still pond someone has thrown a pebble into.

Harry takes a deep breath and leans in.

He's falling, and then standing in a room he doesn't know, but it must be Narcissa Malfoy's bedroom, because there she is, sitting on the wide bed in front of him, her back ramrod straight as if she just broke out of a nightmare, silky blankets pooling in her lap. She's looking around, eyes wide, stray strands of hair falling around her ashen face as she turns her head from side to side frantically, her thick braid cutting through the air with every abrupt movement. The clock on the wall has its hands on shortly after two, AM, judging by the darkness Harry can see in the gap between the curtains.

Narcissa swings her legs over the edge of the bed, floundering for a second before she straightens herself on the headboard and takes quick strides to the door and flings it open. It's not until then that Harry hears the screaming.

It's hoarse but no less piercing, and it's a sound caused by pain, endless, excruciating agony, so complete and overwhelming that everything else can't withstand it, and Harry takes a step back.

A distressed Minnie appears out of thin air, babbling nervously while she stumbles after Narcissa, who's all but running through the halls of her house, tearing another door open so fast that it's thrown against the wall and rebounds, nearly falling shut again were it not for the House-elf blocking it before it can hit her mistress' in the shoulder.

Narcissa stays still like a statue in the door frame, completely frozen as if hit by a full Body-bind.

Harry steps up behind her, looking over her trembling shoulder at the source of the screams, and he immediately wishes he hadn't.

There on the bed is Malfoy, and he's wailing in a way that makes Harry's teeth set and his bones turn to ice. His head is thrown back, his body a curve as his muscles constrict seemingly simultaneously, hands clenching in the sheets, blanket tangled around one leg, the other kicking and bending, toes curling. Grey eyes are open, staring at nothing, tears trailing from their corners over temples to hair dark with sweat. Foam has gathered on bitten lips, pink with a trace of blood where teeth broke skin, and Harry watches, just like Narcissa, as Malfoy twists and bends and writhes under the effect of the Cruciatus cast by someone who's gone since six years.

Then Draco goes limp, and Narcissa snaps out of her stupor, all but running to her son and then falling to her knees next to the bed as she barks orders at Minnie who looks close to banging her head on the next surface, fat tears pooling in her huge eyes, while her mistress tries to shake her son out of his nightmare. For a moment, it seems to work, Malfoy's eyes are fluttering shut and his breath evens out slightly, not quite relaxed yet, but no longer coming in short, harsh gasps that seem not to be enough to provide a body with the needed oxygen. Behind Harry, Minnie Disapparates with a crack, and Narcissa whispers to her son, sweet and soothing nothings while she cards one hand through his short hair, the other holding onto her son's with white knuckles.

Then the convulsions start again.

Malfoy curls up until it looks like he's about to snap in halves, forehead pressing against his knees and more screams and screeches and wails, more terrifying than a Banshee's, are torn from his throat. Harry watches in horror, every scream piercing his chest like a spear, every convulsion, every arch of Malfoy's back twisting his insides, every tear rolling down the bloodless cheek burning a path down Harry's own.

He doesn't hear the crack that announces Minnie's return, only notices she arrived when a dishevelled and nightgown-clad Welling runs through him and into the room, a potion in hand and the crying House-elf on his heels. The Healer doesn't hesitate to take in the scene, just leans over his patient and pours the pink potion down his throat while Malfoy splutters and spits and then, finally, relaxes, going completely limp.

The following silence is deafening, pressing against his eardrums.

With quick and sure movements that don't really fit the off-white sleeping robes Welling is wearing, the Healer inspects the limp form on the bed before declaring, "he's going back to the hospital, now."

Welling casts something on Malfoy and then scoops him up in his arms like he weights nothing, turning around, and the memory ends.

Harry stumbles back from the Pensieve, his left heel catching on the toes of his right foot and then he's on the ground, the pain shooting through his backside when it connects with the floor too numbed by the dread over what he just saw, and he just sits there, elbows locked and palms scraped slightly where he tried to block his fall. His breath comes in short gasps and his head is spinning, images burned into his mind and flashing in cruel detail before his eyes—Malfoy wailing and twisting and crying with the phantom pain conjured by his memories, caught in the nightmare, open eyes staring. The room around Harry swims, losing its shape and blurring like he's underwater, because he's still in the room, looking at the bed with the body squirming on top of it, blankets twisted in skeletal fingers, pale skin the colour of ashes glinting in the light with a sheen of cold sweat.

Harry doesn't know how long he sits on the cold ground of the interrogation room, but he's still trembling when he picks himself up and walks on wobbly legs back to his office.

* * *

"Get out!"

The yell is underlined with the sound of shattering glass, and Harry's pace speeds up, a second voice drifting towards him through the open door ahead, its tone growing sterner with every word, but there's also exasperation there, small but undeniably audible. He can't make out the words, especially when Malfoy starts shouting once more, drowning out the poor Healer's protest. "I said _get out_! And take your useless potions with you!"

More glass shattering on the floor, quickly followed by hurried footsteps, and Harry is nearly run to the ground by a muttering Leatrice rounding the corner, her face so dark that he steps to the side quickly, apology on his lips, but she doesn't even seem to have noticed him, her eyes staring so viciously ahead that Harry wouldn't be surprised to see whatever she's looking at going off in flames.

"You—Blast-Ended Bint!" The Apprentice Healer freezes, hands clenched at her sides, and Harry can imagine seeing her hackles rise and her back arch like a cat's, and he takes another step to the side so that he's out of the line of fire, stopping short when his back connects with the wall. There's ringing silence for a moment, only broken by Leatrice harsh breathing, and he can see her seething so much that he's half-mindedly wondering how there isn't any steam coming out of her nostrils, yet. He nearly expects her throwing her head back to release a stream of fire, but all she does is standing in the middle of the corridor, chest falling and rising with her breaths, shoulders hunched until they're nearly brushing against her ears, and eyes so murderous that Harry decides nothing in the world would be worth it to be at the receiving end of that glare. It's a wonder, really, how nobody hasn't dropped dead by now.

Then the Apprentice Healer takes a long, shuddering breath, her shoulders relaxing and her back straightening as she continues walking down the corridor as if she hasn't just been insulted by one of her patients.

Harry looks after her and shakes his head in wonder before turning back towards the open door ahead and walking up to it hesitantly, half expecting to get something thrown at his head as soon as he peaks around the corner of the door frame. With a hand on the wand in its holster on his wrist, Harry prepares himself to cast a non-vocally Shield charm and takes the last step, stopping short when he looks into the hospital room.

Malfoy stands in front of the window, forehead pressed against the cold glass, shoulders slumped, one hand resting on the hight of his head next to him. The sunlight pouring in through the large windows is deep golden, right at the edge of turning into orange and then red, and it plays with Malfoy's hair, turning it into a fuzzy halo around his head. In combination with the white pyjamas, Harry is reminded of a stained-glass window he saw in a church in Little Whinging when he hid from Dudley and his cronies in summer after his second year. He'd run into the church because more or less accidentally, seeing the open door as an invitation and slipping inside as he listened to Dudley's hollers for him to get back and take his beating like a man, no matter that it was one against five. He'd waited for the sounds of trainers beating against pavement to subside, and then waited some more, only looking around when he was convinced they wouldn't be back soon and find him here. The church had been empty, dust motes dancing in the colourful light falling through windows that were more pictures than anything else, scenes from the bible and saints made from glass shards moulded together.

And there, on the height of the dais at the front, was the angel, standing before a blue sky, features soft and framed by golden locks spilling over his shoulders, a white tunic covering his body and falling in folds around his naked feet, his halo a golden disc behind his head, wings spread wide. One of his hands had been raised, as if in greeting, palm towards the people sitting in the dais. The image illuminated from behind had cast shadows in blue and gold on Harry's arms and clothes, and for a bit, he just sat there and looked, strangely enthralled by the simple beauty of the window.

Now it is like Harry is looking from the other side of the window, and Malfoy is the angel with his raised hand, bare feet surrounded by the broken glass of the phials he'd thrown to the ground in his tantrum. Harry only stares.

Then he slowly shakes his head, shattering the moment, and knocks on the open door to announce himself.

Malfoy goes rigid. Back straightening and head snapping up before he takes a step back and pivots on his heels, miraculously avoiding to cut his feet on the glass. And just like that, the unearthly vision is broken, and Malfoy melts into a pitifully sick looking creature. The pyjamas are too wide, hanging off his haggard form like the clothes Harry used to wear when he was still living with the Dursleys, thin, wiry arms sticking out of the short sleeves like the branch arms on a snowman. There are dark shadows beneath his glassy, bloodshot eyes, and in the hollows of his cheeks. The pale skin has adopted a sickly grey hue, and his hair has gotten a bit longer in the month since Harry saw him last, now it's dark and greasy, clinging to his skull in thick, unruly strands. Harry nearly takes a step back.

"Potter." Malfoy means to spit the name, but fails, the word leaving his lips tinged with too much surprise, and he turns his head to the side, a blush on his face that doesn't quite fit his unhealthy skin colour. Blonde eyebrows drawn together in anger, Malfoy seems to have finally regained his composure, because now he's rounding on Harry again, shoulders hunched. "Came here to gloat?" he accuses with a snarl, and a shard crunches underneath his foot as he takes a step forward.

"Watch out," Harry says and steps into the room, hands up and palms turned towards Malfoy as if he tries to approach a cornered animal. Malfoy yelps and stumbles back, trying to clutch his bleeding foot with one hand while the other steadies him against the window, but there are glass shards all around, and he steps onto another one, the sharp edge slicing into his unharmed foot.

"For Christ's sake!" Harry picks his way through the room, eyes never leaving the now cursing Malfoy, and before the other can react, Harry snakes his arm around Malfoy's waist and flings him over his shoulder. He ignores that he can feel every rib and vertebrae pressing against paper-thin skin, and the way he's been able to lift a fully grown man so easily over his shoulder.

"What—"

Harry rolls his eyes and ignores the demands to be let down and the hands pounding weakly on his back until he lets Malfoy down on the bed, batting the bony hands trying to push him away off, and reaches for Malfoy's ankles. A shudder makes its way down his spine when his fingers circle Malfoy's ankle easily. _He's too thin_, Harry thinks, _as if he hasn't eaten in a month_.

And then he remembers what he saw in the Pensieve—Malfoy squirming and buckling on the bed, screaming with the pain of his nightmares—and decides it's more than likely that Malfoy really hasn't eaten much in the past month. Harry himself hadn't had much of an appetite those first months after the war when, every night, he'd lived through the deaths of Remus, Tonks, Fred and the owners of all those other lifeless faces that had stared at the enchanted ceiling in the Great Hall. Only Hermione and Molly's determined coaxing had kept him nourished back then, and Harry guesses the Healers here wouldn't be above forcing food down Malfoy's throat.

"What are you doing?" The words are pushed through clenched teeth and Malfoy tries to tug his foot out of Harry's grip, but fails, Harry having the advantage in muscles and strength thanks to his Auror training.

"Healing your feet," he responds simply, as if taking care of his school rival's wounds is an everyday occurrence for him, and Malfoy seems to be too taken aback to complain any more. The confusion on his face, obvious in the slack yaw and wide eyes, only confirms Harry's assumption, and Harry stifles a chuckle but can't help saying, "you'll catch flies."

Malfoy's mouth snaps shut at once and his lips press together in a bloodless line, but he looks away and says no more while Harry takes out his wand and lets it hover over the bleeding cuts on Malfoy's foot, flesh and skin knitting together with the help of the first-aid spells every Auror has to learn during their training. When Harry is done, he cleans the blood from skin and blankets with a flick of his wand, inspecting his work.

"There'll be no scars," he tells Malfoy and lets his hands linger, not ready yet to let go of the cold skin he feels beneath his fingertips until the feet are drawn back with a quick movement that makes Malfoy almost topple back onto the mattress. For a long moment, they stare at each other, and Harry is intrigued by the play of emotions he can see flickering over the pointy face and in the depths of those grey eyes; surprise, confusion, hope, longing, distrust and anger. It's a firework of sentiments and oddly beautiful on the face that hasn't been more than blank canvas for six years. Harry's heart stutters in response, his insides twisting before that fluttering warmth spreads again in his stomach, and he smiles softly and open, putting as much reassurance into the small gesture as he can manage.

Malfoy, of course, expects a trap. His face changes into a sneer that's on the edge of a snarl, distrust clear in the line between his eyebrows and the narrowed eyes. "Came here to gloat, _Potter_?"

Harry manages not to flinch when his name is spat at him _that way_ again—in a tone that makes it sound like an insult, in a way he hasn't heard in six years. Heaving a sigh, he straightens up, brushing invisible lint from his knees with a frown before he levels a blank stare at the blonde on the bed. In the deepest corner of his mind, he can admit that Malfoy's mistrust hurts, but then the past six years didn't happen if you ask Malfoy. For him, it's been only a month since he writhed on the drawing room floor in Malfoy Manor to wake up in a hospital bed with his mother having aged a couple of years and people telling him the war has been over since more than half a decade. And then there's the whole thing with Harry saving him—something that Malfoy no doubt despises. So Harry carefully keeps the sharpness out of his voice, speaking with calmness. "You can ask the Healers and your mother and they will tell you that I have done nothing of the sort so far and will therefore not start with it now."

He takes a step back to lean against the window, arms crossed over his chest. "I'm only trying to help."

"Of course," Malfoy scoffs with disgust. "Saint Potter, always ready to help those in need. You should get a badge with that slogan, Potter, in case there still are people who don't know it yet."

Suppressing a sigh, Harry rolls his eyes and combs a hand through his hair, not caring that it already sticks out every which way and that the gesture will only make it worse. "Listen, Malfoy—"

Malfoy is out of the bed and on his feet in a second, his face dangerously close to Harry's, noses almost brushing against each other. Harry can feel Malfoy's short breath hot against his mouth and stops himself from wrinkling his nose. Malfoy's breath smells unpleasant, it reeks of sickness and bitter potions, but letting that show on his face will only make matters worse, so Harry puts on his blank Auror's mask and listens to the speech that's no doubt coming his way. He's not disappointed.

"No, you listen, _Potter_!"—And the way he spits Harry's name, so familiar, so full of disgust. No one says his name quite like that. (He hadn't thought he'd miss it.)—"I don't want your help. I don't _need_ your help. I'm not here to satisfy your hero-complex. Even if I would be on fire right now, I wouldn't ask you to put it out. I'd rather burn to death than be in your debt." Spittle flies from his lips when Malfoy spits the words at Harry, but he doesn't dare wipe it from his face, not with the way Malfoy's eyes blaze with anger, boring into Harry's own. The water glass sitting on the night stand explodes, and Harry can finally tear his eyes away, but Malfoy doesn't even acknowledge what's happened, his shoulders trembling when he yells, "_look at me, Potter!_

"I hate you! You're the last person I would accept help from. I'd sooner let the Weasel or the Mudblood help me than _you_! You're the reason I ended up here, you and your stupid determination and Gryffindor courage. I don't know what you did when they brought you to the Manor, but your stupidity must be contagious, because else I'd never have—"

Malfoy cuts off abruptly, his whole body going limp and Harry catches him in the last moment before he can fall to the ground. Only now does he notice the commotion at the door, several Healers poking their heads in, Healer Welling standing in the room in front of them, wand still raised and pointed at Malfoy.

"I am sorry, Mr. Potter," he says in a way that doesn't sound in the least apologetic. "But I will have to ask you to leave."

Harry, dumbstruck, only nods and lets two Healers take the unconscious Malfoy from his arms, casting a last glance at the slack face before he hurries out of the room. He ignores the curious gazes burning on the back of his head.


End file.
